There “2” Q and A

Q. When will There Open?
A. As we said, we currently anticipate that ThereIM will be made available by the end of June.

Q. Will you open the There Forums?
A. No. To open the Forums means we’d have to provide moderation, which means we’d have to pay someone to keep an eye on them.

Over the year There was closed, we found that there were lots of public forums for people to use to talk about There, and that seems like a better solution for now. Especially since you can say anything you’d like! (Except, of course if you do something stupid like violate our intellectual property, in which case you’ll get a nice call from our lawyers, or worse.).

05/24/2011

Q. Will everyone have to pay a monthly subscription fee?
A. Yes, with the exception of the very few “Beta Lifetime” memberships. These memberships were bought in There’s very early Betas, and will be subscription free. There are very few of these folks, and you probably know who you are.

Q. What about my Premium membership? Isn’t it a lifetime membership?
A. No. It gave you access to premium features. The subscription fee is a new fee necessary to keep There in Business, and is technically a “Price Change”, as described in the Terms of Service. We know that many of you would prefer that there not be any monthly fee, but it’s necessary to pay the bills.

Q. What if I’ve forgotten my password?
A. You will be able to use the same “Forgotten Password” method you used with There: You fill out a form, and we email you the URL to change your forgotten password.

Q. What if my email address was bogus isn’t accessible any more?
A. Then you can use the secret question and answer to reset your password.

Q. What if my email address doesn’t work, and I didn’t set a secret question and answer.
A. Then it’s going to be very hard for us to help you, since it’s going to be hard for you to give us information which someone else acquainted with you could provide. It may be possible to help you, but we’ll charge you a significant fee for the time to do the research, and it’s not clear we’ll be able to help you.

Q. Can’t you just send me my password?
A. No. We didn’t store passwords. We did a one-way encryption on them and stored them.

Q. What if I’ve forgotten my avatar name?
A. You can sign in with your email address.

Q. In the new system will you require email address verification?
A. YES. Ending up with a system full of bogus o or profane or email-addresses-describing-Mr-Wilson’s-family is not in the plan here.

Prior to 05/24/2011
Q. Will all I get my old Avatar?
A. Yes. Our plan is to “start fresh”, and create a new Avatar for you in the system (with the same look, buddies, etc,), and then, overnight (or in the next couple of days), restore all your inventory. This will be much better, as you’ll be in a nice, fresh, empty There without millions of old Avatars and possessions laying around.

We took a backup (actually, several) right after There closed, so whatever you had when it closed, you will have if we re-open. We may have licensing issues with certain items associated with folks who are no longer our partners (since we closed), but we don’t know about those yet.

Q. What about my old Funzone? My old Lots?
A. Chances are highest you’ll get your old Funzone. As for Lots, Hoods, and PAZs, we have to see if we can put them out again, since we’re going to be running the system “in the Cloud” and servers will only be allocated when they’re needed. For PAZs, this probably won’t make a difference, but for Lots and Hoods, we’re not sure yet. We’ll make sure you’re compensated for any lost rent (in There time, not real time) if there’s lossage.

Q. Can’t you make the ocean smaller to make There cheaper to run?
A. No. The Ocean took up one server (sector).

Q. Will I still be in a seamless world that I can circumnavigate?
A. Most probably, yes.

Q. What if I have multiple avatars, would I be charged for each one?
A. Currently, yes.

Q. Can’t you make it so I could combine avatars, or just use my other avatars long enough to get stuff out of them?
A. We don’t know yet. We’d probably prefer the former, since “long enough” will never be long enough for everyone, and would probably lead to abuse in the end. From the responses so far, it’s apparent we’re going to have to figure this out.

Q. Why aren’t you doing free accounts?
A. Because we can’t afford to.

Q. Why aren’t you doing trial accounts?
A. We’re not doing this (at least at the start) because Trial accounts were a great vehicle for abuse, especially by griefers. There’s no system (yet) which can be 100% effective at preventing people from trialing over and over and over, and, if they’re so inclined, griefing over and over and over.

Q. Why aren’t you going to allow people under 18 into There?
A. Because one of the most expensive parts of running There was the cost of keeping the world safe for minors (people under 18). We know that many of our former members under 18 were very responsible, and could protect themselves, but the fact that is not true for all members means that we can’t ignore that responsibility.

Q. Didn’t people under 18 spend the most money in There?
A. No, I’m sorry, they didn’t.

Q. Does this mean you would allow adult content in There?
A. No.

Q. Does this mean you will allow gambling in There?
A. No. The FBI just closed down a bunch of online poker sites in the U.S. There’s a reason we didn’t go there before, and we won’t be going there now.

Q. What is the significance of “42”?
A. If you have to ask, you’re not ready to begin the test. Please do independent study and report back.

Q. WIll you be making paintball free?
A. No. Right now all we’re thinking about is, are there enough people willing to pay to allow us to re-open.

Q. Will there be Portal guns in There?
A. No.

Q. Will the new There use GlaDOS?
A. Yes. You’ve been warned. If you don’t know who GlaDOS is, here are some quotes from her: Here, here, and here.

Q. Why do you have to charge by month? We used to just pay once!!!
A. Yes, and the result was that There closed (actually, There almost closed in 2003, 2005, and then it did close in 2010). That’s not a workable model.

Q. I want There to operate just like it did before, where you only had to do once. Can’t you do that?
A. Ok (“click”). There. Now There is operating exactly as it did when you only had to pay once. Enjoy.

(Spoiler: it’s not operating at all. That’s why we need to see if we can charge so that it can stay in operation).

Q. I was Banned before. Can I get back in?
A. Probably Not.

Q. I was Banned before for hacking and stealing Makena’s IP and re-distributing it and running a denial service attack and running a cracker to guess people’s passwords. Can I get back in?
A. No.

Q. What if I did only one of those things?
A. No.

Q. I was banned before for hate speech. Can I come back?
A. No.

Q. When will you know if you can re-open?
A. The survey will run for about a month : about the first week of May. We’ll then take the data, and eliminate the duplicates, and report the results. We already have evidence that some (cough) people are gaming (Cough) the survey, and that’s disappointing.

Q, What if two people from the same house take the survey?
A. That’s OK. We’re talking about people deliberately trying inflate the results. Let’s say they are successful, one of two things will happen: Either the counts will obviously be too high, and we’ll have to throw out a lot of data, and we’ll decide we can’t re-open, or, we’ll use bad data, open, realize we don’t have enough revenue, and close again. Either way, bad result.

Q, What if I had a Coca-Cola or CosmoGirl Avatar, can it come back?
A. Yes, but it will of course be an ordinary There avatar. Since There closed, we unfortunately don’t have a relationship with Coca-Cola or CosmoGirl any more.

Q. What about my developer items, will they still be There?
A. Yes.

Q. Was it true that “there.com had about 500 hard core users and maybe 2000 casual users.”?
A. No. Think about it. Could There have gotten business with “500 core users and 2000 casual users” from the likes of MTV, Coca-Cola, and Scion?

I was around for VMTV along with there, and I feel like that had a lot of attraction. What if we raised more support for this so that possibly both could happen again.
Was something to cool be on during the weekends, etc.
Love meeting people on here.

i think it would be nice to have unlimited trials with nametag colors for like 5 minutes so we can see if we like the nametag color or not. that way we dont just waste our money on a color we dont actually like.

Wow! There.com is back, can’t say enough how much it’s been missed.
I won’t be able to rejoin untill we’re able to purchase a new computer, but no doubt I will return.
Hi to all my returning, past buddies. Can’t wait to reconnect with everyone.
Cheers to the official There team for sticking it out and working towards a solution for a positive bussiness model that will hopefully keep There around for good.
See you all in 7ish mnths.

Rubber banding isn’t caused by the servers. Even if it was, Bruce and Samsyn keep a pretty close eye on how busy they are, and do make adjustments when they get busy.

Rubber banding occurs when your client’s version of your position, and the server’s version, don’t match, which causes you to rubber band back to your old position. This is typically caused by the connection between you and our servers (which we have no control over).

You can do control-shift-P to get a performance meter, and if you see “red” in the top graph, you’re experiencing some sort of packet loss.

If you feel this isn’t the problem, please let us know WHERE in the world it’s occuring, and WHEN it’s occurring and we can take a look.

uhm sorry to bother but i tried creating and account and put my real name and it said that the name is a legacy name so i’d have to make a matching legacy password and i have no idea what that is… :( can someone help me?

Paypal is doing very mysterious things as I’m trying to pay for my subscription– it will not accept any of my payment methods without telling me “The seller will only ship to confirmed addresses. To complete this transaction, you will need to enter your information again.” Which I do, and then it says this card/account is already added, I hit cancel, select the payment method and it loops back. All of my payment methods are ‘confirmed’ through paypal. What is the problem?

Dragonpimp: Hi not sure were to ask for help but, I seem to be ahveing a problem retriveing my old account for there.com. It Tells me to create a new avi ont he main page but when i put my name “dragonpimp” in it says “Please choose another name”

I have a lifetime membership, and when i try to retrieve my password for my avatar with my email address, it tells me there’s no data. when i try to use the secret question, i get a blank page. what do i do?

There’s no lifetime membership .. everyone pays monthly you can’t have a lifetime membership , if you mean you had an old account and it was a lifetime membership before , well you have to claim your old account and Pay again to log in inworld :D !

80% of you think you can have things for free all the time sheesh real life isn’t free! You realize what is costs to run a virtual world? Obvious not. I’ll pay the $10 a month and $105 a month for my hood. Its worth it. Especially for me its my time away from real life. :-)

well mr wilson from where i stand in there.com in the phoenix park parking lot yoir loseing as many people as signing up, some say it wsont work with 18+ others say it might there not sure and some ive chatted with and who are on my buddy list are just plain getting tired of standing around watching the flowers grow. personally it doesnt amtter to me just open it and make people happy.

I’ve been into There from beta summer of 2003. I was sad to leave when they had a change. I’d like to come back as my old avatar and as gracious as I am for you to have me back I’m wondering why I can’t continue my life time membership as promised me in 2003. Do I have to pay now? Or can I continue my lifetime as in the original contract?

I have been with there since it very first started in the alpha and beta stages. I also received the free lifetime membership. I think you are bound to continuing our memberships. There cant just ignore that. These are lifetime memberships not There’s lifetime our lifetimes. Plus there are not enough of us with free lifetime memberships that would hurt you in the wallet.

Hello Michael, I just previously posted this under the “About” section, but thought that I should post it here as well. I am having quite a bit of trouble remembering my password and the email that I had signed up with for my avatar. I have been trying to remember my information for weeks now and it is driving me crazy! I know you have a Q & A about this exact issue on here mentioning that you may be able to provide help for a significant fee due to the research that will go into possibly finding out the information. I have numerous buggies, my developer items, and other items on my account that I would really like to sell, as well as just spend some well-missed time in the There world. The account that I am trying to restore was a developer account and I have the credit card information which I used to previously buy TBux before There.com closed, if this will help in any way at all. I have tried the ‘Contact Us’ option on There Central, but I keep getting a server error. Information on who I should contact, how I should contact them and how much this ‘Significant Fee’ would possibly be, would be VERY much appreciated. Thank you for your time. I look forward to [Hopefully!] joining back :)

Hi,
I’ve reopened my old Hotmail Email address that was used with my old There account.
I’ve pressed the “invite” link on Theres main page. But I do not get the There Registration message to my old hotmail account. Yet when I make the same request using my current/new email address it goes through to my inbox.
Using the newer email inbox There Registration message I was able to press the “Help Me Remember Stuff” link.
I got through to the page where it says “Reclaiming Your Avatar – Password Reset”. I then place in my Avie name & old hotmail address and hit change password.
I’ve waited 24 hours, have redone the steps 8 times & still I have not recieved any Change my password link in my old email inbox.
Two friends have tried adding There emails to my safe lists & still nothing has changed.
Please I need help.

I have received a invication to join There.com, also I have mentioned a few times I have no p/word
have been told one would be sent, to this date nothing, I enjoyed beinig in There.com, but when it
closed we all feel lost so I threw out all paper re There.com. is it possible to get a p/word sent.rbrtmunro@rogers.com

I was just wondering, will you be making There available on browsers such as Google Chrome? Internet Explorer doesn’t run well on my computer and in some cases has caused crashing, so I’m not too sure if I want to risk opening Internet Explorer too much due to that. Also, I have been having issues with There and my computer-savvy friend recently discovered for me that this may be because I have a “surfboard” router? Not sure what the difference is between a surfboard router and other routers… but what sort of relatively inexpensive router would you recommend for There?

Hey, michael wilson if you are reading this i would like you to check the logs for my account ‘DemonicAssassin’ as i was banned for makeing threats that i never made, there is numerous witnesses saying i never made threats, if you could send me the apparent ‘threats’ in an email and send it to me ill be satified.

Sorry for the bother, but are we still paying 60$ upfront for the first 6 months? I recall hearing about this, but haven’t heard anything about it lately. Thank you for your time sir.
Sincerely,
NewOrleansSoulja

I have my account and everything back but it is saying my account log in is wrong, like the name or password but I’m putting in all the right info, I logged in before in ThereIM and it worked but now its being weird, can you please help, thanks :3

when logging in it ask me to verify my email address I click submit and I never receive the verification notice. Went to Help support@there.com comes back undeliverable. Waiting two weeks no email to verify email address which has been on my account since 2003. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have not been able to get into There.com at all. I remember my avatar name, but not my old password so I put forgot password and they emailed me a new password, but it never works, I have tried this like 30 times, still won’t work. I have ALOT of stuff in There and I spent ALOT of money and this is ticking me the hell off. 3 of my There friends tried for me also, didn’t work for them either. What can I do? I really want to get back in There, I have missed it so much. Thank You for any help you can give me.

I’m having trouble logging in, Atleast I think i am. I have re made my Legacy Avatar of course and downloaded the client/IM and edited the properties like told. But 24/7 I get the World is down, Or Server full. Not sure if its possible to get in yet.

Anyways, I’ll keep trying to get in. Looking forward to playing again.

I currently have a Bronze funpass, So i’m assuming/hoping that is the cause for me not being able to log in. But on that same note, I am anxiously waiting for There, To increase the amount of people aloud in the world at 1 time. Or atleast letting people below Gold/Platinum Funpasses to join in for testing.

Either way, Glad that it’s in the process of possibly coming back. Happy i’ve made it this far with my character restoration. Love seeing There Central lol.

Sorry for this triple post of sorts. I just wanted to update these past 2 messages before someone tries to help.

My account has been updated to its Platinum Funpass and now i am able to log into the world. Everything is amazing, and feels just like it did years ago.

I have received some of my items that i can remember from 5 years ago but, Some important one are missing like Super bunny Slippers. Hopefully they come in along with some other stuff i remember. I’ll give it more time before worrying if there is a problem.

Thanks to the there team for bringing back this amazing game as much as they have this far. It’s really fun to play it again.

dear there team. i just got my legacy avatar back today around the time the servers went down for maintainance. its 7:59 in the morning now here on the east coast and i want to log into the game. unfortunately i can’t becuase i keep getting a log in error saying the servers are full and can’t possibley take anymore logins. but that can';t be because there shouldn’t be anyone on at 8:00 in the morning. can you please fix the login error for me so i may log in and find my friends.

Wilson, Or to anyone who knows.
Why am i currently getting “That avatar name is a legacy avatar which is not available.”
Now, i know “Legacy avatar” is made before there was closed i get that part, but why cant i register it…..

I know that the process is still working because I just brought an old avatar back to life earlier this week. I have noticed that sometimes it takes awhile for the system database to recognize you, especially if the servers are busy. Be patient and wait. If you have followed the directions correctly it will eventually work.

1. Get your invite first. (then read the email that the system sends you carefully)

2. Use the reclaim your Avatar to make a new temporary one

3 Again check your email and read the directions carefully

4 Download the ThereIM client

5 Change the settings as directed in the email

6. Loginto There IM … this starts the process of your old inventory being reclaimed and connected to your avatar again

7. Read your email again, you should have gotten another one that tells you to verify your email address.

8. Wait a day or 2 and then log back into ThereIM and explore the menu until you find out how to open your profile, then check your TRANSACTIONS to see if your old inventory has been returned to you yet. Sometimes this takes awhile. You should also be getting more email stating what Fun Passes you have earned.

9. You are now ready to wait for the reopening of THERE with the rest of us. If you have a GOLD fun pass or above you can try to download the BETA TESTING CLIENT of There Production and hope you get lucky enough to get logged in to do a bit of testing. THIS IS NOT FOR THE technology weak minded.

Hi, Im trying to get a invite, and keep receiving “Sorry to tease you, but apparently we’re not sending any more invitations at this time. Please try again later.” When will i be able to get a invite? or is it perm closed?

Im trying to recover my old account and im currently receiving this message “Sorry to tease you, but apparently we’re not sending any more invitations at this time. Please try again later.” When will i be able to get a invite???

Heyy Guys, I’ve been told to file a report about there.com thru this site :) Umm Everytime i’ve managed to get onto there.com world…It crashes….and logs me out, which is slightly unfair if tbh, ummm my other online world games work perfectly fine, so it must be there.com, On facebook on the there.com help and support site…someone said they reported it and it got sorted :) so i was wondering if you could sort it :S It would be great help, as of course…im hoping this will be sorted before it becomes fully opened, as i dont exactly wanna pay monthly for something that crashes every 5mins :S Thankyou :)

There Beta Introdution video of the Welcome Walke.
The walke is needed to learn the basic things to there.com
Some signs and setup can be change wen you get online for the first time.
But let you know this still a beta welcome walke.
See you soon on There

Ok gang….I can no longer get to the groups page without downloading the new IE…and I can’t get to the download place for the new IE…I keep getting the notice “connection was reset…blah blah”…What does that MEAN???

Hey Samsyn Could U Invite Me Please.. I Will Be A Loyal Customer To There.Com When It Opens And below in the name box is my previous username.. Thank You! I have changed emails and i am having trouble retrieving my password please send me an invite email.. It would be greatly appreciated.. Thank You Once Again!

You use to have it where it said about how many more steps to the goal of playing there. DO you have an idea what the new date for the world might be. Or is it that you are dealing with unexpected issues so there for no one knows. Just curious. Only answer if you got the time.
Thanks

i think the Comment bar was’t working but i will repharse this just in case.

Michael, i would like to ask you this important question after the questions if you had answered before or not. this Questions is:
1. was Original There.com has ran up the costs quickly than it could afford to pay the people working on There.com?
2. what happened to All Datas of any kind when There.com was shutting down, and where they go to?
3. Will Avatars get some update on their looks for Example, on DX8 to DX9, something like that?
Lastly.. the most Important Question. 4. When There.com was Launched in 03, it has Basic members and Premium Members. had’t you even thought of this Feature called F2P or FTP which is nickname for Free to Play, would free members would have limited features than of Premium and Basic members. F2P models across the each gaming world such as Champions Online are sucessful and proven. for instance, Free members are limited only to full playing through, yet cannot buy Premium/Lifetime contents such as clothing and vehicles etc. while the Premium/Lifetime members has every full features that currently have is playing through, premium/Lifetime contents, invite friends and other stuff. etc etc you get the idea. but you’d still make money by selling contents in a ingame store only premiums/lifetimers would buy and pay for. There.com 2 can have Four memberships if needed. NOTED that with Free Membership, it will bring in almost 200 players per weeks or months. but not sure. the Four Memberships would be: Free, Basic, Premium, Lifetime. well, you get the drift of this. i’m just wondering about this, so i’m asking you this.

Mr. Wilson,
I Registered my legacy account and set up my ThereIM. I changed the target and all that good stuff, but when i try there IM it just goes to a little box that tells me my buddies and online status and T$. I was under the impression that the There 3D World would be open now. Am i just dumb and not knowing of how to get it working or is it not up yet. Feedback appreciated from anyone.

The world is not open to the public yet, ThereIM is available for those of us with Legacy Avatars. The 3D client has just been opened for 5 lucky Guinea Pigs and the rest of us are still chomping at the bit “so to speak”.

Hello, Mr Wilson, I heared that the only payment method for Subscription Fees is going to be PayPal. well, yes I’m 18+ and I have my own Credit Card. but, due to I’m from Egypt.. PayPal doesn’t support Credit Cards from egypt. I tried to varidate my account. and it said: Sorry, PayPal only varidates Credit Cards from supported countriies. .. However, how am I going to pay for subscription fees now? =)

I remember reading somewhere about the email address to send tech questions about ThereIM, but I cannot find it now.
I have attempted to re-install a copy that worked a week ago, but now the app does not display on the desktop, only on the task bar.
I think this is a DX issue, but cannot be certain even by running Dxdiag.

Hello, Mr Wilson, I heared that the only payment method for Subscription Fees is going to be PayPal. well, yes I’m 18+ and I have my own Credit Card. but, due to I’m from Egypt.. PayPal doesn’t support Credit Cards from egypt. I tried to varidate my account. and it said: Sorry, PayPal only varidates Credit Cards from supported countriies. .. However, how am I going to pay for subscription fees now? =)

has anyone got a working there im yet or is everyone getting the connection error if there is a work around can someone please post it or if its a problem could there be a official update to the blog please thanks

I forgot my email and my password… could i have my account still? is there anyway i could get my email or able to make a new email.. or something i really want to play there.com again… email me at rockhi50@yahoo.com if you can helppp thankss(;

I wonder if anyone can help me out? I’m trying to claim my old avatar but whenever i type in the name and enter my email, it just says ‘something when horribly wrong’ I tried it with my newer email, and with the one I used for that account back when There1 was still around. Can anyone help me out on this?

i had my new password sent to me with a reminder of what my user name is . so at the top i put the username in then password within clickin login first. then made the avatar with the new name but it says ‘We are currently only accepting members by invitation, sorry.’ but i got the invite , then when i did it another way where i put the user name in then the password in it came up as error , it wasn t incorrect as i keeped checking . has anyone got the same problem and what should i do as i am sooo annoyed and been waiting agess for this site to work again.

i had my new password sent to me with a reminder of what my user name is . so at the top i put the username in then password within clickin login first. then made the avatar with the new name but it says ‘We are currently only accepting members by invitation, sorry.’ but i got the invite , then when i did it another way where i put the user name in then the password in it came up as error , it wasn t incorrect as i keeped checking . has anyone got the same problem and what should i do as i am sooo annoyed and been waiting agess for this site to work again.

A friend from back in the days of Beta just sent me an email about this! I hadn’t heard anything of There since the last closing. Very elated for all involved.
My question is this – when I was a part of the beta I was young, and so I had to have a parent buy $T after I had handed over the cold hard cash. However, a miscommunication occurred and a parent didn’t know what the charge on their card was (didn’t know the name of the website), and called to say it was not authorized.
After being banned, I found out what had happened, had cleared it up with the parental unit, and then later had had them call to reinstate the account. By then, the card had since been paid off and cancelled. The There team said that because there was no longer any way for her to verify, the account could not be reinstated.
Hundreds were spent, and I’m in my twenties now, obviously with my own accounts, etc. which would prevent further incidence.
I’m super stoked and unbelievably grateful to read about all the hard work being put in, however, I was wondering what happens to people like me who had a mishap with bannings. I know it’s a case by case basis, but I remember coming over from TSO which at the time was huge, and spent years in There, and met some amazing people from across the country that to this day, I still keep in contact with. As hokey as it sounds, There is something I totally believe in.
I’d love to be able to jump back in, get my feet wet! I’m also curious as to whether the forum would need help moderating? I’d be game for helping out when it’s all up and running!

Thanks for the info. :) Seems to be a lot of “Very unlikely” responses to being “unbanned” anyway, so I’m not sure why I was excited about the prospect. Regardless, thanks much for the heads up, makes sense for sure.

Hey Michael, I’m quite concerned… the relaunching of There as a Pay2Play is a horrible idea… I do realise the reasoning behind it but as a long-time MMO player let me tell you where your plan will fail

– Charging anything higher than $10 a month for ‘There’ would basically be financial suicide… I’ve read through these comments
and I haven’t seen a price, If I missed it than I am sorry… My reasoning behind the “Don’t charge more than $10″ is that
there is a lot of cheaper (free) alternatives out there… hell I can play RuneScape’s Premium for $10 AUS.

– You guys have to realise that that being Pay2Play from the get-go (or Re-get-go) is gonna kill your game unless you have trial’s…
If players can’t try out a game they aren’t just gonna buy it… especially as There’s premium crowd wasn’t huge to begin with
what makes you think that a year later that ALL of them guys will return and that ALL of them will pay a (monthly?) fee?

– Don’t get greedy man… the moment you get greedy is the moment you will be closing There again. Take my advice on making Premium very cheap,

– What I don’t get is why not just make premium monthly and keep free…

– 18+ is understandable… but yet again you are digging your own grave… you probably have the numbers of your previous
members ages, Is the number of them that are over 18 AND were Premium large enough even if all of those were to return which I am positive not all will?
I am by no means bashing the 18+ since I really didn’t like the snot-nosed 13 year olds.

–+ These are just a few of the things you need to watch and make sure you don’t Fudge up upon re-release.

Ok, oh and by the way take your time on making the game good, I dont turn 18 until November… Just a warning though if you release before the end of November I’ll play anyway
I don’t know how you plan to find out peoples age, but I bet you I will get away with playing until I can legally play.

I may be 17 years old but I’m also a well at the very least a former customer… don’t forget that.

Allowing members under 18 would require keeping There clean and safe for minors which means the need to pay for helpers once again. What you are asking for is the same recipe that caused There to close.

I also don’t understand where you get the “greedy” thing from. You clearly haven’t been following this enough to know he isn’t making money off of this. If his eyes were filled with greed, he would have sold all our contact information back when There closed..

It amazes me at how many people have lost the plot ~~when does there open? when does there im open? whats this done this way for? what use is that It is bad enough hearing this long and galling whinge in world do we really have to suffer it before its even back. Why do I have to pay.( come on get with the program use some of that grey matter, already know that I am wasting 5 seconds of my life writing this bit) I cant be bothered to read and see if anyone else has answered so Ill keep asking the same question in 20 different ways until someone tells me anything only they mock you and guffaw at the silliness of it all and you. The natural way to be is to think this is amazing and wonderous if you loved this world great if you didnt noone cares. There will open when it opens and be sure you will hear about it at exactly the same time as everyone else and we should be thankful that it is at all. Even more thankful to MW and the team who have probably dedicated far more of their life, patience and talent to ensuring it is still in existence than they ever should have in a sane world. Long live there and all who virtualise on/in/with this digital gaia. :D Look forward to poddling around with no rhyme or reason and bumping into random and usually quite fantastic people once more.

well,my main conceren is after joining in 2004 and spending alot of bucks ,is that at least i will have an opertunity to get back what i thought was lost,lol:).I am glad its reopening now:)I have spent many days especially in the winters playing on there and it has entertained me greatly during the winter months,lol:P

I have however changed my email address and also have got a new motherboard and jacked up my puter to a gd state besides dialup,rofl:P
I am finally with DSL and am sure many will be glad to hear of this,rofl:P( I bought a new place further out of town:))

I did transfere all my infentory to my main avatar(danby),i am however concerned that this will affect what i had before,but maybe not:)MY inventory was outrageous,lol.The funzone at tikki beach(next to cosmos ) was a great place to hang and buggy race:)I do however agree with michael when they want to get rid of all ages under 18,lol.It was very hard to control that funzone with many insisting to be let in every day 24/7,lol
Also many radicals that had no respect for discipline at all!!I do however understand that people want to have fun,but please have respect for the people that are serious about there buggy times and races,lol
With the help of many fellow racers and buggy fanatics it did turn out to be a very gd place to go(when it wasnt overun by radicals)rofl:P
Many times my fellow buggy masters had to call me and i had to give them rights to get rid of people.It did however turn out to be a great place at times,but did take alot of time to get it that way:)The lag issues however where very hard at times and im not sure if it was just many people on at the time or others around me building up there zones,anyways im glad to be back at it and hope all works out for the best:)
Here in alaska it gets dark 24/7 for alot of the winter,and when not working it helped tp satisfy my entertainment craving ,lol.OK,enough said:).Hope all works out for the best and hi to all my counterparts in buggymania,tc,and cya soon’tu,Look out now,I have 1 whole meg,rofl:P,waves:)

Hi im 18+ my friends have been telling me about this game called there.com so i really wanted to try it but the download wont worrk can u plzz tell me y cuz my friends are like in luvv with it and i think ill be in luvv with it sum day too!

“Mr Wilson”. Let be one of the first to Thank you.!!! So verry much for bringing back THERE.March 09 2004 was my avies birthday.And as we all know March 09 2010.I said good by to my Avie that i so loved very much.I was one of the avies that talk to you for the first time in Zona.And yes i have bin Cleen and sober for over 3 years now.And its mosty do to THERE.I will for ever be in your debt.And i so look forward to being back in a game that saved my life in a way……God Bless..

So I tried to login today into the new site and it will not pull up my old avatar and username. Tried to have it send to my email that I registered my account with and nope. Doesn’t exist.
Sad part is I was one of the original people testing it and had free lifetime membership.
So am I going to loose it all now?

Hi Michael, sorry if I missed this elsewhere (so many comments/replies to your posts!!), but is there a list you’re compiling or a web location to register/be notified when services are available? I’m excited like everyone else and want to be sure my account is slated for reactivation when the time comes. Thanks and the updates are appreciated!

I have a question for Mr. Wilson. I was curious to know if the economics of There2 will be the same as when it was before. I am curious because I noticed how the virtual real estate market had problems and would hate for the same mistake to be made again. As someone who used manage properties for a living I was surprised to see so many similarities in a virtual housing market. Before There.com closed I was lucky enough to work for Joey Shadow. Joey intrusted me to decorate and manage his hoods which exceeded well over 20. During that time I worked for Joey, I attended hood association meetings, spoke to hood owners and learned why so many owners had to give up on their wonderful creations which so many their-ans enjoyed exploring.

With all the new improvements you are making to the new There.com, I hope you take in concern ways to fix some the old problems hood owners faced before it closed. You increased costs so There2 can to make a profit which is understandable, but you also need to allow hood owners a chance to do the same. Hoods failed due to many reasons, but I found a majority of them failed because it was no economically viable to keep a hood open. I think the flooding of new hoods combined with high operating costs made it nearly impossible to break even unless the hood was nearly full of residents. Most first time hood owners failed because they have no idea how much time & money is needed to have a successful hood. I know there will always be hoods that fail of no fault of your own, but providing some useful information or having There hood helper might reduce the number of failed hoods which in turn increases profits for you. I could go on further but I am sure you get the idea.

With a little re-structuring I believe you can improve profits, customer satisfaction and hopefully bring back some of the wonderful hoods and owners who help make There.com such a wonderful place to explore. Good luck with everything and I look forward to coming back. .

Hey peeps, just wanted to say ” good-day” :P) Anyone know who the New investors are for There since Cosmos and Coca Cola are out of it? I’ve been playing Xbox 360 these days with the Kinect :) Call of Duty and Halo Totally beats paintball in There and as for Spades, Second Life is even Better then There LOL Peace to those who can’t wait for There :P) If Yoshitoshi is still around,,,,You were the Best :)

I don’t know how many times MW has to say it, but the over 18 thing has nothing to do with griefing or maturity level. Am I the only one who’s bothered to read these threads clean through? It has to do with the high cost of putting protections in place for people under 18, and the amount of money that group actually spent in world doesn’t make it smart business. Now I know one or two people will likely pipe up now saying ‘I spent HUNDREDS’ but it’s about averages isn’t it. One person spending hundreds and a thousand people spending nothing, well, do i really need to do the math? And yes, people under 18 will likely find some way in, but There’s liability drops drastically by being a strictly 18+ site and having things in place to keep minors out. Have I got that right MW? Please correct me if I’ve got any of that wrong …

I have a Question. I had been on there since its beta days, and I remember having the Beta Lifetime Membership (2003 or 04). In 05 or 06 I wasn’t able to play anymore, then I heard it got shut down. Do you think my account got deleted due to inactivity?
I just got into my old email address that I used to sign up to There.com with.
I just hope my account is still accessible.
Anyway, thanks for reopening There.com!

Well, I really half-agree and half-disagree on the 18-over thing. I mean, I get about the payment thing, but what makes me disagree is it will be hard to figure out who is 18 and over or not.
Everyone is immature at some point, but not immature enough to say “I WILL RIP YOUR HEAD OFF” In complete caps. But you rarely see people say that… right? I am hoping I am not hated for posting this comment.

To the fake Jeanswithpockets, some people i have spoke to have said there was to many kids on there in the past & they went over to another popular 3D world…..not giving them any plugs so wont mention there name, anyways, as there will be over 18’s only it will probably attacked more people.

Hahaha Does Anyone Remember “jeanswithpockets” Because I’m Him Im Popular You Gotta Let Me In And Im 18 Blah…. So When Is The Exact Reopening Date… And Will Users Under 18 Be Allowed If The Family Members Have Accounts In There2 Pay For Their Account ? Because Without iKnow There Will Lose Alot Of Member Not Saying That It Will But Might…..

They might lose a lot of members.. But they are going to gain a little bit of what they are losing. And them member count isn’t that big of a deal, as more of can they keep the amount of money coming into There.com to match what they need.

Mr. Wilson, when i heard There was coming back i was ecstatic. A friend of mine played There as well and because of this game we have been emailing each other constantly since the closing. She and i are very excited to here the re-opening. as far as the payment goes. it is no object for id give an arm and leg for this game (metaphorically of course). we are both hardcore Thereians and cant wait to come back. So on these words. we are two therians who can not wait to begin playing again!

How exactly will you be able to tell if someone is 18 & older? These kids are the technology generation, they are brilliant enough to “con” their way into or out of anything. Just out of curiosity Mr. Wilson!

good job, you found out my lazy way of posting a comment faster, what point were you trying to make? & I completely understand why you’re making it 18 and older, but it would definitely be a guaranteed good choice to allow all ages in the future, children & their parents paid almost hundreds, even thousands of dollars, it’s called addiction mr. wilson :)

Mr Wilson.I do not Care if i am the first or the LAST one in game.My Q is? I hade a verry large Inventory File list of things. Most people dumped there Inventory.Will it all still be there?
THERE sacrificer Is that better.!!!

What makes no sense. is adding to the monthly fee like most sites do. you also have to pay for therebucks.. so to own a lot.. u take that 10 a month.. then add even more to it. taking more out of ur pocket. i understand that there has money issues. but the new membership fee. is there bonuses? free credits monthly? And is there going to be 7 day trials to even give people a chance to see if they want to start playing again or not. or is it going to be like. “Give us money now or you’ll never see there again!” lol.

I truly wish us teenagers could use There. Cant we get our parents permission and then have them verify their credit card to make sure we truly have their permission. I think most teens would be smart enough to know if they are safe or not. Or maybe, teens can pay 15 dollars a month instead of ten ?

For teenagers internet predators are not always easy to spot. It’s just better for everyone if minors are not allowed to use this service because while some teenagers can protect themselves, most can not. Just wait until you’re 18 and then you can do whatever you want on There.

Well.. i agree tottaly about the rules of 18+ because I have a daughter 14 years old. But what it happens is, that they declare a fake age. Even for to create an email account you have to be 18+ but my daughter has one since her 11…. I dont see where is the difficulty when they want to create an account in a site of 18+? They just need to lie about their age and its done.. As about the debit card as far as i know a lot of parents provide their kids with a card like this and even if they dont , there are many cases that kids stole/borrow their parents debit and they do it. I hope im not well informed and its not as easy as i describe it :) See you There soon, ‘cheers beethros

Lol. Sadly the whole 18+ is weird.. seeing how half of there’s members were lil kids who bothered you. when i first started there i was about 15-16 or even younger. now im 19. and there is known to be fooling around alot.. races. paintball shooting. etc. so by getting rid of the kids they’re really just losing a bunch of there members.

I am one of those old weird beta people, and I hope that you have some way for us to financially show our support in a way you can take to the bank. For instance, allow us the OPTION of signing up for a $5 a month subscription for which we would get Therebux on the same day each month. Perhaps you could use that to show consistent income to bankers or potential investors, etc. I hope that makes sense!

I’m not sure if you have answered this yet, but will you be able to let us change our avatar names. By that I mean us having to pay extra to change it because I’m sure there are a lot of people who would pay extra to change their name instead of making new accounts. It might help you make a little bit more money as well?

Hey you male whore f**k the money and try to make ppl happy.Back before there was closed in 2010 i used to play free paintball,have fun for free,get clothes for free by trying it.Soo now you are gonna delete “try” option.Some ppl dont have credit card and arent 18+ but still like the game.Im 13 and i loved game,when game closed i cryed now you are gonna make game worster than it used to be.My parents dont alow me to buy money on there.com but i should still have right to enjoj clothes,paintball and have fun right?!?!?!??!

Well done Michael. NekiTamo is the reason social networking sites like facebook, myspce, There, should be free. Kids just have to go a few miles at most to talk to their friends who they see everyday anyway. Adults need help and this young person fails to see that it is not all about him.

I am unsure if my previous post went through, but I proof-read after I clicked the post button realizing my first sentence was not complete. Anyway my point was Michael Wilson is good, and NekiTamo is spoiled and needs to get off the internet occasionally.

Hey – thought of some options today. Would you be able to implement an in-game advertisement model (like what you had) for members? Big billboards, whatever, where bidding (like Google AdWords) gets the ads (places with more people and clicks on the ads costs) – [I mean in addition to normal monthly fees]?

per sign or completely overall? And here’s another idea… what about developer packages or partnerships where things like the developers of Farmville (which I do not play, btw) and other (apps-with-lots-of-people) can develop 3d likeness/interactions which directly do the same thing the 2d version does (including all the stupid fb posts which one can turn off). Perhaps a Farmville slight discount for current Farmville members wanting to go 3d.

Just an idea for the whole I-have-stuff-on-two-avatars-and-don’t-want-to-pay-two-monthly-fees thing. Why don’t you make a one time only 5 hours for one dollar fee. This way, people only need to pay a dollar to activate their avi and get all their stuff off it. But once it’s done to an avi once, you can’t do the 5 hour thing again, so people can’t abuse the privilege. I don’t actually have two avis, but just read that and thought of it. Yaaayyy.

We’ve already hit puberty, so don’t assume and expect us to act like little twelve-year-old children that go around spamming and yelling at other users.

You can’t assume that we haven’t seen ‘scary’ things, as you adults would like to phrase it. Nobody that uses this Internet is immune to it, including me.

Would you take into consideration the fact that every virtual world out here, e.g. Habbo, IMVU, SecondLife, Freerealms, Flyff, and even SAMP (San Andreas Multiplayer) don’t have an eighteen-and-over age requirement?

Valid point. I’ve been in your shoes and understand where you’re coming from.

Something that can possibly help your argument is the fact that they won’t have moderators. What this ultimately means is that they (Makena) can leave the responsibility of moderating accounts to the parents of consumers under the age requirement.

P.S. You are a great example of a mature underage consumer who has a source of income and can afford to subscribe. :)

This is how I would look at it– if they can afford to subscribe, why not let them play? After all, the more individuals that subscribe to play, the longer There will remain open.

I would include on the “User’s Agreement Contract” a passage clearly stating the age requirement (18 +). In addition, I would also include a passage stating that individuals who do not meet the age requirement may only play under parental supervision.

There is also the issue of following “internet and government” protocols. There might be a law that mandates MW to ensure the safety of children under the age of 18 by hiring moderators. Ultimately raising the operating costs.

Well i for one would enjoy coming back to there when it does re open, i had my account SweetOnePrincess stolen ohh id say about 5 years ago now give or take i guess thatwas my own stupid fault really I would actually like to have it back at some point cause of the rl money i had spent on my own stuff Anyways that was way back then i just hope the person that now has that account is not making it a bad name .. time to move on and learn from mistakes i do hope how ever to be able to see if i can find my old friends .. i wil be keeping an eye out :)
Haven fun all and see ya THERE hehee

I find this rediculous. You’re making people 18+ pay $10 a month just to play a game and getting nothing out of it. And then you’re just going to technically kick people 18 and under out of the game. Not all children are all bad, Some are very mature for their ages. Trust me, You won’t have many users at all because there are plenty more games out there that DON’T require you to pay at all such as Onverse.com.(Awesome game btw) And if you have to get to the point of where you make 18+ people pay $10 a month, Then you might as well stay closed. Forever.

Hey so…. I was wondering. Remember when the game was closing up and you guys decided to offer free super bunnies in various colors for FREE? Will we still be able to keep them in our inventory or will they be removed?

This may be a little early or premature, but has anyone thought of what kind of layout There2 may have? I ask this because I personally as well as most Thereians don’t want There to close again. You might consider changing some of the layout. Some of the islands just quite didn’t quite make it, Such as Tyr, Egypt and some of the other islands could be changed. Since it will be for 18 and over. Maybe add more activites geared towards that. Thanks for reading. Dawgie.

Good post William and thanks for energizing my mind. I like your post but I’m a little Tyr freak :). Your right it could use reorganization and I have definite opinions/suggestions on the subject. However might I make one suggestion now you can think on and There. What if islands like Frosty and Tyr were only up seasonally for instance Frosty during the fall and winter months and then Tyr spring and summer. Some of the other islands could maybe be seasonal too. Not sure if this could help operating costs? It might make the islands more inhabited if fewer of them are up at one time. Help refresh content in the world and bring them back to being more populated as most of them were not very populated.

I personally feel the world was to large. It might help people to appreciate some of those islands more if they only have access to them at certain times of the year. You could only rent zones or hoods on those islands during their seasonal time of year of course. Also I know they were very spread apart for a reason but I think if they were within closer proximity like driving distance it would be so much more enjoyable to members and possibly this could help bring them a little closer together. I was told once in a There email to move an island to another location would be impossible engineering and expense wise.

On the 18+ thing…. I’ve got a couple of kids, 5 and 7 whole have (before it closed) enjoyed hovering and driving around (always 100% supervised). I see no issue in doing this again even under new rules. I expect that I can personally re-enable their avatars with my age/name/etc, as I am entering into the contract(s). As they aren’t in a group/chat setting (I don’t allow that) and just motoring/exploring, again with my supervision, it’s me in the contract, not them. They are just pressing keys and enjoying. I see no conflict in any regard with this.

On some of the other threads, can’t 13+ year olds get authorization from their parents (by actually having their parents create the account/enter the contract) and it is up to them to supervise (or not) accordingly (per parent trust, etc)? I realize that you cannot devote time to restricting content – however, I read that you wouldn’t allow adult content it if you saw it and take it down or if it’s reported – so it’s not meant to be an explicitly adult area – just one you cannot supervise (leaving that up to the parents). Is that a fair statement?

Okay, so I am going to try again. I tried asking this question twice before and haven’t received an answer. If I don’t get an answer this time around, I’ll assume it’s a no. However, I hope to God that it’s a yes.

So – I’m a beta – I read somewhere about still being a beta – is that true?
Secondly, I was agreeing with all your Q&A until I read this:
Q. Will there be Portal guns in There?
A. No.
And, for a moment, I got really excited (and I haven’t played the game even once yet)… just the idea of placing teleports, and sending others off (should they perhaps opt-in to allow that once in a while), would really be something I’d purchase :)
I look forward to a potential re-eval of that question :)
And I look forward to using There.com again.

Hiya, I was hoping you could make the payment method abit easier for me and probably many other people. I have a PayPal account it’s just hassel using it. I was wondering if you could make it an option to pay directly from a debit card or credit card, straight out the bank? I’m from england,uk too. So would that be possibly to take british pounds which are equal to american dollers?

Mr. Wilson, I recently read some of the questions involving someone getting banned and it was very specific on if they would be able to be let back in if they were ban for a SPECIFIC reason. But I would like to know what are all the reasons of banishment that will/do require indefinite banishment. or in other words have no chance of getting their ban revoked. Please be specific.

Your question didn’t make the cut but you should read the Terms Of Service when it’s republished new again for that answer. I don’t think there would be anyway to list them as each case is so different and unique and requires a lot of information collecting. Often different parties of people involved. It would be hard to list all the actual specific reasons as there are so many nuances. This might be why your question was not answered as your question is to vague. Maybe if you list the actual possible ban that interest you someone here with experience can help you with their own foresight. Maybe if you say “Can someone be ban for___________?” you will get a yes or no or maybe.

I think there used to be a code of conduct too that helpers were always telling people to read but I’m not able to find it now. Perhaps once they update the pages later on. You should find pretty clear answers in the Terms of Service once it’s republished unless they forget. lol I think you could be more specific though if you want a clearer answer from people here.

>>Q. Will you open the There Forums?
A. No. To open the Forums means we’d have to provide moderation, which means we’d have to pay someone to keep an eye on them. <<

I would humbly submit that you could always recruit volunteers to moderate. I have played a MMORPG for the last 7 years – and for several of those years had been a moderator and for a bit admin of our clan's website. We didn't get paid. We just got to feel important. ;) In all seriousness, most of the times nothing ever really got out of hand and we were just there to add people to their proper groups for posting access. I realize it may not be quite as simple as that – but I'd be willing to bet there would people willing to step up and help there – if you ever decided to go for forums.

No Way, I’m not to keen on people who wAnA be forum trolls moderating a forum like There’s under the cover of volunteer. Especially someone who’s moderating background comes from where you say yours humbly come from. Your so called experience is what killed the idea for me. Should have kept that part under a rock.

Not sure what your problem is with me – or MMORPGs. Try to have an open mind – it will serve you much better. And my suggestion was humble – not my background in moderating. Some of us are grown up enough to know how to play a game and then how to be objective on a forum and adhere to rules of moderation. And if you had bothered to fully read and comprehend my post – I didn’t even offer to be a volunteer to moderate forums. I was submitting an idea.

But then I see your posts responding to other people and I guess I stepped on your toes as you seem to be the self-appointed “parent” chiding people around here. Perhaps you were the forum troll you referred to in your rant reply to me. ‘smile

Hey there Keyleigh, the response I’m sure you looking for:
Actually I didn’t read or participate in forums or view them very often for that matter. If I did look at them it was usually because someone sent me a direct link about a post they thought I should read through an IM or email. I didn’t care much for the forums so I paid them little attention. So I guess your right in that I would be selfish to say how they should be moderated as I didn’t participate in them and that’s also why I’m not to concerned about them coming back of course. I know you meant well but you were thinking one sided. What you were really saying was basically that you wanted to be able to control & moderate the comments of other people ((( for your own agenda more than likely ))) under the cover of a ever so nice volunteer. Your reference to the other place where you did this that told me you figured out it gave you control over other peoples comments and you want to be able to do the same at There. Sorry if I exposed this but it was my intention to do so.

When it came to your suggestion there was no question that I had to be clear how much I disagreed with your solution for handling the forums. I don’t think most people if they really think about it would like someone who is equal in the service to them paying the same price and then having control over their comments, at least I certainly wouldn’t. Sorry to be a bit ruff at your post but I didn’t like your suggestion and wanted to speak out loud and clear for those who might agree with me but don’t want to speak out about it before you pushed on further with your volunteer fantasies of being a forum controller/moderator. When I read your post it stinks real bad of your desire to control others and it still lingers into your reply to me even worse. But I will give you a ‘high5 for stepping out boldly and at least making a suggestion that people can discuss.

I’m sure you meant well and what do I know? You might be a talented moderator with all the bells and whistles with the exception that you already took very personal your comments with just one post. ((( You see what I mean now! ))) You’v made yourself the example of my reason already. If you decide to respond it’s OK, I won’t ruffle your feathers to much and I give up pretty easy when it comes to debates. On the other hand it would be nice to hear what others have to say if anyone’s even out there?

Truly amazing….. I am not big on forum usage myself, but tbh Kayleigh’s suggestion held a lot of merit. The way you shut it down and twisted it around HighFlier, just because you don’t “read or participate in forums or view them very often for that matter.” makes you come across as a real douchebag. Honestly, it’s not surprising, since I’ve seen questionable responses from you all over these pages. Just amazing that someone could be so closed-minded and stuck in their own little world. And if you’re considering bashing my reply with one of your own, or possibly conducting some other sort of repercussion, remember that this is only my opinion……

To Kayleigh: while I have never volunteered as moderator on any official forums, I have seen it done for a number of corporations. The volunteer is not given their position just because they “volunteer”. They go through a hiring process just as if they were to be a paid employee. Because of this, I totally, whole-heartedly agree with your suggestion.

this is kinda awsome there is commin back and ill be able to catch up with old friends like onvi and micheal wilson i cant wait to play paintball again and lay ppl back out lol j/k i just woop butttt hahaha but just sucks we gotta pay but lucky i got a beta avatar woot ill see you guys THERE.

There’s no way he’s going answer you on a topic like that in public if that’s what you were thinking. If you already let him know once that should be enough don’t you think? If you overly beg about this there might be a presumption that your being demanding about it rather than remorseful and sorry which I think is the only way possible to go with this. I have a friend I’d love to see un ban too who might not have been dealt with properly and was possibly unfairly ban but even at that he’s still extremely sorry and remorseful for the way he handled the issue with the helper that ended up having to ban him. He knows he mishandled the issue with bad judgment. We know the chances are highly unlikely he’ll be allowed back in world and have taken that to be the final word but we did let it be known he was sorry and wanted to return to There. That’s really all you can do. i would let go of the idea in your mind that you’ll be allowed to return using your original avatar because if they do let you back it will likely only be in a new avatar because they destroy all the account contents of perma ban avatars permanently.

At least this is what others have been told when point blank asking the question in the past. I have seen an email where this was stated right on the email from There a long time ago from another ban person unless they fixed it to look that way which is possible too. Your better off to move on and just send them an email once in a great while ( maybe every 6 months) explaining how remorseful you are and how upsetting it’s been, reminding him you made a very bad mistake and had very poor judgment. You need to realize your mistake in other words first before asking to be allowed back in. Let him know you miss friends who miss you and ask if they might let you back in with a new avatar someday in the future to start over and get one last chance to redeem yourself. Even with this your not likely to get any response at all probably. Unfortunately your being made an example of to others who might think about using their account against the terms. It seems to work pretty well for them to keep this staunch position about not allowing ban members to return.

How can you justfiy a subcription fee AND an in game economy based on real money also? Doesn’t make sense – no thanks! I’d rather be paying those fees WoW gold sellers actually….. this is nothing short of the same thing isn’t it? Except that’s you’re forking out money to the legitimate parties instead…

As we said in a few other places, the most conservative measure is to just use subscription fees. The in-game economy will, at this point, be needed to make up for the people who said they would subscribe, but didn’t.

Sounds like a good idea to be honest. Shutting it down in order to restart servers and clean up all the junk would probably help increase performance and minimize lag. Of course Amazon and Makenas tech geeks would know better but its just a thought of mine.

im very happy as there.com is Re-opening, but i won’t be joining till the next year or so.
i doubt that it will be the same as it use to be. all my favorite people have moved on to there Lifes :'(
im dissapointed about the monthly charge… after spending lord knows what on houses, premi accounts,clothes, cars… ect. ect.
but i understand that this will help There.com progress…

anyways,

i have a question, this might’ve been answered also.
Will we still be able to therebucks with Those cards you can get from walmart, kmart, && other stores?
thank you for any answers <3

HighFlier, there is no need to get on here and be an ass to people. You could have answered her question in less words than it took you to write that smartass comment. Try being nicer. I promise you’ll live longer. :)

@17IamSelena According to MW, ThereIM should be up by the end of this month. As for the game, I am clueless. However, it shouldn’t be long after the IM is up. Hope that helps.

You seem to be a very cool kid but why must you scream and yell at everyone here. You don’t seem to be having a bad hair day or anything so why yell at us. Have you learned yet that posting in public places it’s considered very rude and childish to yell at others posting along side you. There is no excuse for your bad behavior issues to be displayed to all of us.

This question has been asked so many times before you asked it. If you would just read the prior blog posts you would figure out they aren’t ready to announce the date yet.
All you’v done is put another spin on the same question here and pinned it on the donkey’s tail on top of all others who have already asked the same question many times.

i’ve perused your recent blog entries, and i don’t believe you have addressed the system requirements of the upcoming re-release of there. this question occured to me because i am in the process of shopping for a laptop computer, and i want to ensure i am investing in something that will be compatible with there in the short and long term.

so, are the system requirements of there likely to change from what they were before its closing last year? will i need an os upgrade? more memory? better video capabilities? do you foresee any updates to the there software in the near future that would necessitate upgraded hardware?

what are the minimum system specs for there “2” as best as you can determine at this time? it would be helpful for many to know this.

Not trying to complain or anything. But, i dont get how you would make it an 18 And over site, because one of the reasons i heard was because they dont pay enough ? well you even said your self that you will half to pay every month, And if you dont you cant go on your avatar, Soooo. everyone would mostly be paying equally, And teens are mostly on the computer and would 100% pay each month, But 18 and up, Have jobs and a life and arent on the computer as much, sooo i think you should just keep it to a 13 and up or atleast 15 and up or something. And i heard something about minors, And signing a contract or something, Well when people sign up there parents should have to fill something out or something, And i heard something else where mostly teenagers would sew , Teens dont even know or care about sewing people, Like come on.

Good Question, The reason is because they need to trim a lot of cost back to the bare bones so There can stay operational and viable. They made what everyone hopes is a very good business and moral decision to cut the cost of helpers salaries who used to be paid to protect minors. Minors are people under the age of 18 by law in most all US States. Maybe someday they’ll make a teen island or something like that if all goes well so hang in there. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were in the works as we speak but I really have no clue or confirmed info to warrant my suspicions.

I am glad to hear There will be returning. I held a Lifetime Beta account that was generously paid for by the friend who referred me and knew how much I love the world. I made a 2nd free account shortly before closing with a different avatar name than my previous. However, I would like to use that name instead of the original, but retain everything else the original avatar had. Is this something that will be possible? The original avatar is on my Lifetime Beta account, the other is on a free account and to clarify I would like to use the name of the free one instead of the name of the beta one, on the beta account. Thanks for your answer, should you choose to provide one

Sorry if this question has been answered before but I’d like to have it clear. There wouldn’t be any moderation/moderators in game at all? I know we have tools to protect us of harrasment and innapropriate language but some people can be really annoying so I’d really appreciate to know if you have in mind any moderation system.

I could be out of the funnel but I’d be willing to bet that HE, HE’s engineers, HE’s customer service person a total of what 3 staff will be the moderators at first at least until liquid gold starts flowing in the virtual pipes again if ya know what I mean. Sounds like Skippy will be head moderator using a Tommy gun as the moderation weapon.

I am so happy that Michael Wilson had decided to reopened There at the end of the month. I support MW decision in what he do in reopening There. I cant hardly wait to rebuild GreenAngel’s Space Serenity Community and to see all my friends.

HEY MW!!!!! remember the crazy girl who told you that her there house was haunted and every time she went inside a loud voice would scream HELLLLOOOOO!!! hahaha I swear i wasn’t lying. Even a year after I had that house I went back and it happened again, I think the creator of giggles was messing with me because he heard it also. Oh how I miss you and that crazy Oracle of Delphi

Dear Mr.Wilson
Once there.com is back and open will there be away to do an appeal on avater if they where banned for the wrong reason , My Names SapphireRose , i was quite well known in there.com for my game shows and televison show i had on youtube which i used to PROMOTE there , i tried to get people to join there in other virtual worlds , i belive what i was banned for was the wrong reason and i belive that i didnt have a chance to appeal for my avatar to be unbanned , Micheal i am such a down to earth austrailan girl who wants to have fun in there.com and come back , could you see to reason if i can do a appeal letter to you or something ?
Because without there i am lost :( ,
xox SapphireRose

I didn’t read all the above comments but out of the corner of my eye I see that you’re honoring beta lifetime memberships? Are you nuts? I think that’s a very bad move. Take the cash from EVERYONE. We want this new launch to work which means NO MORE FREE Michael. They already got a beautiful gift for all those years There was open. I am ashamed of those people who expect more than that. Didn’t you learn from the last time? A good business needs good cash flow. In the future when you’re in the black and feeling rich – then you can give them a finite period free but not now and not forever!

Well, If your an accountant you should know that sometimes things are worded a certain way or promised in a way that reversing your word just isn’t possible. For all we know there might be legal reasons why he can’t take those particular lifetime accounts away as it might be a legal issue or legal advice. Maybe a decision discussed with other investors. I have a feeling it’s more of a moral reason for him though. Maybe he feels he can’t back out of a promise he made to those early members who helped him get the news out and help test the world which didn’t have much content to provide at that point. I think during that period people paid for those accounts and were not always able to play and they had blackouts while the world was being developed and updated. Lots of trial and error was going on. Some of those people might have been families or coworkers of the developers too.

I’m sure there are historians who will correct me or chime in If my info is off but the world was basically under construction at that point so maybe he feels he owes it back to those members to come back without the difficulties they had the first time when they originally purchased their accounts. Anyway it seems fair to me and I have no issue with those early members keeping what was promised to them. It just wouldn’t be right to do that to them and might make for some bad karma with the There Gods.

I’m happy for those people and you should be too. I think it’s nice of him to take care of them as he promised.

*I was a heavy Active Worlds member at that time and I’m basing this reply on what I know about that period of time from chats I had with others who visited There in the beginning. I won’t go into detail about it though or I would end up writing a whole book.

If my memory is correct back when they announced the Lifetime Beta membership plan some people were skeptical of the offer, that there had to be some sort of catch. I think someone ran by a possible scenario that There could close, reopen as There2, and thereby making our Lifetime Beta memberships null and void. I think we were reassured that our Lifetime Beta accounts were indeed Lifetime accounts and would be honored as long as There existed. I figured the catch with our membership plan would be that we would have to pay for any new services that might later be added like the adult island. that was rumored to be coming.

I think it’s great that Michael Wilson is honoring their promise given to us back when the 2003 beta ended. He didn’t have to. If he had said from the start of this survey that he wouldn’t be able to honor these Lifetime Beta memberships then I would have accepted it, but he has already said he will honor them. If he were to break his word now it would give the haters more leverage and he would lose the trust of others by breaking his word.

Hi, my account Decision was banned because I used someone elses account named Virus because i liked the name, and i was only banned because they had been previously banned and they thought it was me. haha. So could i get my account back? Because i clearly did nothing wrong in the first place to be banned, they just thought i was someone else and had banned me .

Island guides were NOT a bunch of party poopers!! we were a great hard working team that had to put up with soooo much abuse from alot of therians but we still carried on because we loved what we did ….im sure im not the only one who was proud to be an island guide

Michael,
Been thinking about other aspects of the game, other than Paintball. Has the code changed enough that it will not allow the 3rd party compasses to work? The Bedican and jsCompass were the ones I used. Most of us relied on them quite a bit.
A better question might be: Are you guys working with any of the 3rd party developers?

I for one am a BIG Babs fan. She made quite the events. So will the Babs towers still be where they were once you guys statrt clean? It would be wonderful to have those still. A big part of the community.

Very excited to see There2 come up. It seems like if you’re going to make a mandatory payment to play then you should either lower the price of T$ or make an in-game method of obtianing them. Just doesn’t seem fair that we have to pay monthly to play the game, then pay the same T$ prices to get pretty much anything in the game.

I know this has been mentioned before. BUT I think right now.. It might be best to re-open the forums. Well you guys would have to figure out stuff with the accounts wouldn’t you…? Any Possible way you could get them back up before ThereIM?

Is there any possible way for you to allow there to be Volunteers in game? For example, Ho Onverse runs. They have dedicated members be Guides..
Tour guide = Island Guide
Guide = Modorater (not as many permissions though.
Senor Guide = Greeter
And these people also have permission on the Forums to. I believe only Senior Guides, but I think that could work for There.com to. I mean look at how many members would love to volunteer to do it. :)

Myself therefore is very much looking forward to starting a fresh with There 2, I dont remember the email address I used with my old username RnBGirl and forgot my password so this will be an great opportunity for me to start a fresh. Do you know when There 2 will be lauched now? Will the prices to buy ThereBucks and renting a Lot to keep the house in be the same? Will we still be able to adopt dogs? When roughly will you be able to let us know when the official launch date is?

Can you verify once and for all, who is the Lifetime Beta Memberships apply to? This has been the point of debate and contention ever since the survey. A lot of conflicting information and interpretations of vague words like early, few (and “lifetime”). I see you have dropped a few clues like A) the LBM were indeed ‘bought’. And B) there are about 300 or so members that qualify as LBM. You said something to the effect of “you know who you are.

Well for their sake, and to be fair, everyone who is not, how DOES one know?
What specific factors are determining whose lifetime is really lifetime?

I get the notion form these posts/updates you want to show transparency and win some trust among former members. A clear answer would go a long way here on both fronts.

(Pesonal note: I was under the initial impression I did have a Lifetime beta membership when I purchased it, and was thrilled specifically by the offer when I read it way back then circa 2003. However, circling rumors about retractions and re-statements regarding this have left me very confused, angry and doubting what I remember. Is this new deal for betas or really alphas? Is it always worded so vaguely becaus eyou wish todecide whose memberships to honor at a later time? I certainly plan to reactivate all accounts of mine, but knowing my main and oldest one would be honored as “lifetime” and “free” would go to determining any long term goals I could/would make in a new There. Delete this parenthesied part if you do not wish for it to be seen, but please at least answer the questions with a definitive response.)

The original – and current – intention – is to honor the “Lifetime Beta” accounts which were given out in the early Beta days before There opened, of which there are, at, our count, around 350, as indicated by the member program their avatar was assigned they took up the offer.

I’m not sure how you would know you were one of those if you don’t now. We don’t want to post the list of avatar names, since that would just become “The list of accounts to hack.”. Certainly if you re-activate one of these accounts, we’ll let you know you don’t have to be pay a subscription fee because you do qualify.

As for “other” lifetime accounts (of varying prices), I will review those to see if it makes sense for us to extend the offer. Frankly, if we decide that everyone who claims lifetime should get There for free, we should just wrap this up right now because it won’t work.

I’m not aware of any circling rumors or retractions: I’ve always been very clear: Lifetime Beta Accounts. I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear, I wasn’t actually at the company for a few years between 2003 and 2005 (except by writing checks), so I don’t know at this time what other “lifetime” accounts people may be talking about.

Hmm I can understand you wouldn’t want to generate a list for public consumption. I guess even asking about it here paints a bullseye on me for hackers.

I guess opening up a page were old members could login to a system that tells WHICH member program they have is not feasible either? Maybe an email to the ~350 members sooner rather than later would be a good way to put them at ease and perhaps suggest what their (re)new(ed) membership with There might offer or just ask them specifically for input on such plans if you want any?

I certainly don’t expect There to be able to afford to keep to a “lifetime” agreement for the majority of its members, as pretty much everyone I know had some kind of deal that said a membership for life. But I do feel for those, myself included, who feel rather a victim of a ‘bait & switch’, who expected that a lifetime account bought before v1 opened would still be honored as was said in the original survey. I do plan on paying for 1 account at least, A return of my Lifetime membership determines what accounts I have to sadly sacrifice and how long I can be a member in There.

I don’t have any receipts from There in 2003 either. So I can not read the “fine print” as it were and can still only go with what I recall the big pricing reveal in Beta and jumped on that original Lifetime offer. I checked my old email and while I found the original offer I probably bought:
————————————————–
There has officially announced the post-Beta pricing plan, including your exclusive Beta Tester deal. As a special thank you to all our Beta Testers, we’re offering this incredible, once-in-a-lifetime offer.

For only $29.95 you get:

* LIFETIME membership in There
* Explorer Pack – FREE!
* Music Upgrade – FREE!
* Voice Upgrade – FREE!
————————————————
While I could not locate a receipt definitively proving i actually bought it (tho I really question why I would have bought something else!), all the talk of limited and exclusivity, has me doubting if this was indeed the correct beta offer and if in fact I bought it!

(I hope There would have ways to protect its member’s account information and passwords in the wake of Sony’s huge hacking debacle O_o )

I can explain the confusion. At one point you said something about only the lifetime subscriptions that were “given” out in “early Beta.” Most of us had taken what was said in the survey to mean all subscriptions that were bought in the last few days of Beta before the game went live. The confusion is that that was early in the game, but late in the beta, and they weren’t “given” but bought. The other confusion comes from the fact that you kept saying the very “few” accounts and I remember back when they were for sale it seemed like the whole universe was buying them. (The universe was pretty tiny back then?)

I hadn’t seen the number 350 before just now, myself. I know if you are referring to accounts bought right at the very end of Beta, that there are a number of inactive accounts that will stay so no matter what happens from here. If your 350 includes a pile of inactives, I start to see why you say it is a very few people.

Actually MW’s response sounds clear to me…If someone was a Beta member BEFORE the initial ‘opening to the public’…they would be the ones for the free accounts…You see, I started back in 2005 where I DID pay a lifetime membership…but…it was after THERE was opened to the public…so it would be the ones that were subscribed BEFORE opening to the public..That is why he said…the members would know how they were…. Makes sense to me…

But as I had stated before in MW’s blog …Beta or not..I would rather pay the monthly fee to HELP out our great community…Also, I would consider my payment as a donation to help THERE out!!!! It’s so vital to the continuation of our great community!
I know this statement might sound a bit like, ” Ok let’s shoot this avie with a paintball gun”, but here goes:
V
If I were one of the 350 or so, I would use my old beta for free, since MW was so generous to let me do so, BUT…I would also pay a monthly subscription in order to also help THERE …. ( using an alt I had, or recreating a new one, would help with THERE’s expenses…..IMO

c5 Thanks for bringing this up – I think a lot of people are confused. I am a Beta, I started in February 2003 and had to have an invite to get log in information. When October came and it was announced Beta was over and There would be available for anyone to log in. We were offered the Beta deal for $29.99 – we could keep the inventory we had, got the Beta mug, etc. Tom was in charge then – he called it a lifetime membership. MW are those the people that should know who they are? I know there was a Beta I and Beta II, might have even been and Beta III, is it just the Beta 1’s or any of the Beta’s or none? I’d really like to find out who I am soon!

I won’t have any more clarification on this issue until we go back and dig up every version of “Lifetime” ever offered (Not “Lifetime Premium”, which is meaningless in this complex).

This will be time consuming, and I’m not sure when we will get to it. In addition, it may open a huge can of worms, since if we add up every version of “Lifetime” ever offered, projected income will drop below projected expenses, and we’ll have to decide what to do :-(.

I know of only one Lifetime Beta membership, the one offered to beta testers who signed up for it before October 12, 2003, though I know of a couple accounts created after this offer ended that were Lifetime Betas. One I think was a former greeter who was laid off. The other was some girl who had joined in November 2003 and kept insisting she was a beta tester despite the join date in her profile… I think the confusion was with the term very early beta testers. I finally was able to join July 2003 and don’t consider myself a very early beta tester since I know of people who joined in 2002 but I was able to get in on the $29.95 Lifetime Membership deal.

I too am a bit confused (I think I need to stop thinking so much… ). So over on Thumdar’s a while back I was sort of thinking out loud as I made a post using my two beta accounts as an example on determining who would qualify as to not needing to pay monthly subscription fee. And I had said that since I had paid $30 for Orielle’s Lifetime beta account I would be able to log in as her without having to pay a monthly fee, but if I wanted to log in as my other beta account which I did not pay for the Lifetime Beta membership then I’d need to pay for the new monthly fee for that account. And Michael Wilson replied to my post on Thumdar… (”’WOW I feel so special) that I was correct.

Devil’s advocate here, which I rarely do. According to his spreadsheet, the man needs to make around $31 grand a month to make this ship sail. That’s provided everyone who said they would pay in the survey actually does pay, and new member recruitment pays off as well. I’ve taken the stance that, if he lets us back in for free under our lifetime agreements, fine and dandy. If he decides he can’t afford to do that, it’s a business decision and I’ll be fine with that. I’ll either pay, or I won’t.

He’s taking an enormous risk firing that bitch back up in hard times like these, with the country financially crashing and burning around us. We all know that some people from the survey who said they would pay to play, ultimately won’t. It’s just how it is. If he lets too many people back in for free and can’t make his numbers, we will lose There a second time, mostly like forever, then.

I’m not going to jump his shit. If he says I have to pay to get in, then I have to respect that. What I do then is up to me. /soapbox

Can you make it possible to have a “NAME CHANGE ” option–even if we have to pay for it? (Like say $5, $10 or something?) Reason: I used my REAL name–stupid mistake I know. Plus I have loads of stuff on this specific account.

Nopie nope….they won’t change the name tag on accounts. It’s a big mess and very time consuming ordeal for them to do it. I’m fairly certain they won’t do it.
Your better off to get a new avatar with a name you prefer and move your inventory to your new avatar. Keep your old one as a mule to hold seasonal items or cloths you don’t use often or to use if your new avatar is ever on a server having issues so you can still log into the world till it’s patched. Almost every person has more than 1 avatar in There anyway. But you might tell them it’s your real name that you used and see what they say. It can’t hurt but I’m fairly positive they will not change a name tag name.

They do this in second life now sort of by allowing you to change the name on your tag but I absolutely hate it. Drives me crazy not knowing who is who on my buddy list without going to extra steps to find out their original name and the names people are using are just horrible with every character known to computers. This was one bad move on their end. I will not miss that feature of second life at all. Some like it until they see all the issues it creates. I would not be surprised if they remove it at some point. Lets hope There never tries anything like that.

Will there still be auctions available for us to buy and sell items to each other as there was before? If so, I’ll be back and ready for business. I have to say that one of the reasons I decided to not be in world so much in the last while of There, was because of all the free accounts. Too many people asking for handouts and free stuff. I support the pay only platform. I also like the 18+ only idea. See ya in There (hopefully) …FASTCASH…

Personally I think its a crockload of crap that back when i paid $80 for there, and was told that I would have a lifetime account that There would then close and decide to reopen and tell me they were “jk’s” about the Lifetime Account. If that’s the case than you have most certainly lost one of your “core” gamers to the fact that you basicly lied to me and everyone i knew back then. I would also like to hope that the people I knew back then would feel the same way. Therefor yall be wasting your time, and good luck. Lifetime = Lifetime not Lifetime = Whenever We Choose Otherwise.

Dear Mr.Wilson
Once there.com is back and open will there be away to do an appeal on avater if they where banned for the wrong reason , My Names SapphireRose , i was quite well known in there.com for my game shows and televison show i had on youtube which i used to PROMOTE there , i tried to get people to join there in other virtual worlds , i belive what i was banned for was a dumb reason and i belive that i didnt have a chance to appeal for my avatar to be unbanned , Micheal i am such a down to earth austrailan girl who wants to have fun in there.com and come back , could you see to reason if i can do a appeal letter to you or something ? thanks sapphy

This enitre family played THERE, for many years, even my 2 grandkids.. rofl who borrowed, claimed and kept rofl.. some things, not that I care, either way.. but back then we had to FAX personal info about them and myself.. for permission for them to play.. When THERE closed was all that erased? I only ask because that info is proof of who I am.. If its gone thats ok.. the “items” I don’t care about.. my question is, somewhere in the blogs I read that you might be able to help those that don’t have the same emails, or don’t have saved passwords. Sometime down the road, do you think you might tell some of us what the fee will be for that “xtra” help? Sorry, probably way to early to ask.

My question has still not been noticed, and I’m hoping that this time you can answer me, as I know that many other people have a similar / identical issue:
My daughter was a very addictive There.com player. I do understand that she will no longer be able to play, but; I had spent hundreds of dollars on her account to get her the newest houses and clothing (She was persuasive), and I would like to transfer those items onto the account I will be making. I’m wondering if you will allow accounts to be open for a certain amount of time (under supervised conditions) so that parents like me won’t have to waste all of those items simply because of an underaged account. At the least, I would like to transfer the items to my new account so that it won’t have been a waste of money. A response would be greatly appreciated, Michael. Thank you for your time :-).

We don’t know the answer to that. You would have to somehow be allowed to “claim” her avatar to transfer things from it. The “open for a certain amount of time (under supervised conditions)” is a very slippery slope which we don’t want to get on.

Alright thank you:)… I was only wondering because she has a lot of stuff (clothes, cars, homes, etc.), and it would be nice to start with all that stuff on my new account… Can’t wait to play MW, so thanks:).

can someone like really donate some money to there.com some of us will like to play but we cant without our money i only have 20 dollars on my card thats not a lot serouisly dude are u kidin mi thats totllay unfair we all will try to help keep here.com safe

After the world gets open and things get up and running do you think you will look into paid member requests.
Example: I would be willing to pay to have a 16×16 paz put in front of the entrance of my Frontier zone so I would be able to put my (Watch for falling buggys) sign up out side.

i am happy to say i play there be for mr wilson got there.and had a nice hood name goodland in the island of kansas. name after goodland kansas. i for one would be happy to see there reopen and come back . i paid tons of money to play hood was 75$ a mo. when i 1st got it and then it was 100$ a mo. so i for one put my money in to there.and will again.

Quote MW:
Q. Does this mean you would allow adult content in There?
A. No.

Does your 18+ policy involves any difference on virtual content against a minors open site? I mean what is your picture of an adult in your business? Is it accountability with drafts and transfers only? (pls excuse my straight question) Since a naked breast reveals mums milkbar, which is adult content in the US, but accepted for a breast feeding mum even in public transports, how far do you plan to restrict your users. – I would join THERE, if you can concider romancing is a very substantial part in adults interactions and welcome on THERE. I’m clearly against S3Xual content, but as well too educated to surppress my wishful thinking in my own house/virtual design.
Any answer is okay and still gives you my honest appreciation. Two thumbs up for your courage!

I’m not sure if I can answer your question. I guess one guideline would be “If you can’t see it on the streets of the a civilized city in the world, you probably can’t see it in There” (We’ll ignore things like naked bike riding day in Amsterdam, etc).

Uuh 1 more:
How do you plan to authenticate foreign users by age? By US credit cards only? What about PayPal?
I’m thinking if you plan a comprehensive re-opening, don’t forget there are customers abroad awaiting your plan to tease us!

hihi – never thought of naked bike riding in public … :-)) funny idea. I’m thinking more about a sort of privacy in the house I’m supose to buy , as I had plenty with poses on imvu. – Just trying to find out what the change would be. Me and my darling are ready for a new 3D-IM-Site, don’t know if you like us to come and to anounce good news to our dissapointed friends, who left the other site with us in 2006. ;-)

I was wondering if there have been any graphical improvements to the game? Someone asked this earlier and I do not think you replied. I remember seeing pictures of a female and male avatar posted here on your blog quite a while back. They were touched up a bit to get a more real look to them and makes me wonder if this will be implemented into the release. If you read this thank you for your time and reply :)

We will be releasing a client which has DX9 (and DX8, and OpenGL) support, but to get the full affect, we’ll need new art to show it off. Probably at some time in the future we’ll make it possible to developer art to leverage the DX9 renderer.

Yes, we’ll be making those new avies available, but we’re not sure how or when yet.

i asked the same question and he never botherd to reply so i guess that all we will be paying for is to play the game. i find that unacceptable and if its true i will not return because i can go on secondlife wich is soo much better and its free. even if u do pay for the premium fee on sl u get a free house and 300l a week.
I challenge you MW to offer people something for their money other than access or otherwise you will be seeing not many people join

Tim,
You said
“I challenge you MW to offer people something for their money other than access or otherwise you will be seeing not many people join”
Apparently you have not been reading the comments on this blog.
What are you getting? DUH!!!!
Your getting the best friggin game online, PERIOD!
If you enjoy SL so much, then go there! Stop wasting his/our time with your negativity.
It would appear you have never been on There before. How can you make comparisons without actual experience.
Oh, another observation, your grammar sucks which leads me to believe you are very young or English is not your first language.
Hope you enjoy LAGGY SL.

snoopy st off i have been on there and i can say it is far from the best game on line i would actually call it the worst game on line actually i have played a lot of games over the years and the only reason i stayed on there was to chat to my friends. and 2nd my grammar is fine if u dont like it then screw you. if i want to type bad i will type bad not you or any one else will stop me so go get a life.
i find it hard to think that my 1st language isn’t English since i was born and raised in England. i just hope u will all enjoy being ripped off by there when it comes back on. if i go on there again which i very doubt i will i expect the user created fees to go as that should be a part of the monthly fee and i think that everyone that pays the fee should get a free house or paz .

We were so excited about there.com re-opening! My son and I had sooo much fun on it! But due to the 18+ rule we will not be returning! I spent alot of money for him to have fun on there.com houses, cars. clothes, and paintball ect. Not counting what I spent on myself on there.com. As has already been mentioned second life is only 72.00 dollars per year and you get a house plus 300 lindens every week.I am not sure if this has been mentioned been teen second life was a major flop! So they had the good sense to close it and allow them into regular second life with restrictions as to where the can be through age verification. Now lets talk about IMVU which is completely free, except for the things you want to purchase of course, in order to access adult content you have to be age verified this seems to work well. So I don’t understand why there2 cannot do the same. Also if someone using anything that is for adults only like clothing then anyone not age verified will see them in noob clothes. I just wanted to get it off my chest as I know what I have just said will make no difference you have already made up your mind. So two people who dearly loved there.com will not be returning. We are soooo sad!

It really sucks that you must be 18+ I played there to get away from my family, my only true friends were on this site. And I feel pretty stupid putting this because it makes me look like an idiot but I never really had a “real friend”. I’m always being treated harsh for who Iam and on here I felt comfortable but I guess I’ll never get that feeling again. I’m only 15 years old hopefully there would be a parental control or something. Guess I’ll see you all I’n 3 years :(

When will we be able to download developer programs/files, such as StyleMaker and the Previewer? Will we have to wait for the world to re-open for that?

Also, a question I haven’t seen you answer, or anyone else ask yet:
How do you plan to keep under 18 kids from trying to come back? I mean, obviously you have to be 18 to have certain credit cards, but I’ve had my bank card since I was 15-ish, and that serves as a debit as well as credit. I know many places assume users are 18 because they use credit cards, but nowadays it’s just not plausible. Obviously people can say they’re 18 or over by putting in a fake birth date. Will we have to provide proof of our age with some form of identification like they do with Second Life and IMVU (and probably other places)? Because I think it would be a good idea…Just something I’ve been wondering. I can’t think of any other way you would be able to tell the difference.

You Should make There.com for Xbox, Ps3 and all that stuff it would make there 200 Times better BUT it will take time and money so i dont think you guys want to do that but just throwing the idea out there you could make alot of money…

hey MW please try to find away for that we will be able to move our stuff off all of our accounts to one i understand its going to be 10 bucks a month but i have a few accounts and i wont be able to afford to pay for each account cause its going to be hard for me to make the 10 bucks a month but imma try but any way i dont want to lose all my stuff on my other accounts so if you will please try away to make it free to log in and get our stuff even if it we log in out alt accounts and we are locked in a room with no exit so there is no greifers out in about in the world lol

I understand the perspective completely. I also want to just add one thing. My account wasn’t “banned” I believe it was closed for the charges. But they were going to reopen it before There had closed. But, take your time with my question. Love There.com and I’m 100% sure that There “2” will be just as good if not better.

Hey, Michael. I had a quick question for you if you wouldn’t mind answering it for me. I was banned on There.com a little while before it closed. I was banned due to unauthorized charges I had on my credit card on file. Because I didn’t do anything against There.com’s rules would I be allowed back into the game? I am over 18 and I would once again pay for an account. Monthly charges to keep There.com running seems fair enough to me.

Unauthorized charges were a big problem for There. First, they cost us money (for the chargeback), second, we got dinged with PayPal, which impacted our transaction fees, AND could get them to stop allowing us to use them.

I see. My main question is: Would I be allowed back into There.com? I understand There’s issues with chargebacks and I wouldn’t be using my credit card. Most likely I would use the paypal to do anything that concerns the Therebucks or membership payments. If it comes to it, I will use a credit card. But, I’ll be using it on a much more secured level.

Ok, I did not know where to go to ask a question, but since it’s a question I will use this tab area:
Someone is asking, “what payment methods will MW use? I have looked and looked for the answer…Has the payment methods been determined and if yes, please show me where you found the answer…in other words, show me the carfax!!! or ‘There’ fax !!!
Thank you in advance,

Michael i don’t think people will pay $10 for thereIM alone, i would pay but others may hang on until the whole thing is up & running before signing up, apart from that, i admire the way you have explained & shown us the figures.
I & meany others are now on a mission to spread the word……Viva La There.

mike im bigsneekie we met in my bf joe dantonios hood one night it was like the coolest thing to because everyone talked about u an i never new who they ws talkin about .but any how i would like to suggest that if u cant advirtise maybe all of us in there that love it could figure a way to advirtise there .com for u would that help out ? if so i will do what ever i can to put the idea out there .as many as there is that love the game an different personalities im sure we can get other ppl to help with this idea free of chrge of courseive been banned before but it was over dumb childish things but u no i love there so much it would nt matter to me if i could come back or not i just think the world should be on for ppl to enjoy because every one should exsperience it at least once it is deffinitly the best virtual world ive ever played so tell me what u think an illl put word out to help u get the advirtising u need on our part ty buddy an i hope it works out this time ill help all i can

Yes, I never took there.com off my computer. I try to log on every day since it closed.. I even tried to log on seconds after it closed. Will the software still work from before or do I have to download new software? :D

If there is ANYTHING I can do to help. I will do it galdly free of charge.
There .com was my home away from home.
my wife even made me a Birthday cake with a scene from there on it.
I logged so many hours , make so many lifelong friends,
I have been lost since that fatleful day There closed.
and have been walking on air since I heard it is re-opening!

Michael can you give us an estimated time? ive been checking on There,MY HOME, EVERY SINCE the day it closed everyday,and i prayed and prayed and PRAYED that There would come back and FINALLY we have a sign on our HOME page that says There will re-open! Please im beggin youu.! and estimated time if you may!

P.S: And you dont have to reply if you probably dont know!
p.S.S BUT will apreciate if you do reply :D

TRUTHFULLY ALL THESE MESSAGES SAY IS WHAT WILL I GET AN WHAT THIS AN THAT PPL . THEY NEED OUR HELP TOKEEP THERE ALIVE .IM THE BROKEST PERSON IN THE WORLD BUT U DANG WELL BETTER BELIVE I WILL HUSTLE MY ASS OFF TO GET $10 A MONTH TO PLAY ON THERE ITS CLEAR TO SEE WHY THERE CLOSED . ITS CALLED GREED NO ONE THINKS OF EVERYONE JUST THEIR SELVES I SAY WE PULL TOGETHER LIKE WE DID TO GET THERE BACK .AN HELP THE CREATEERS TO FIGURE THINGS OUT TO KEEP IT . IVE PLAYED THERE FOR SO LONG THAT IT WAS LIKE BURNING MY HOUSE DOWN WHEN IT CLOSED. PPL THERE LIVES THREW US NO ONE ELSE SACRIFICIES HAVE TO BE MADE AN I WILL MAKE AS MANY AS I CAN TO HELP MAKENA TO FIX AN MAKE IT EASIER . I NO THERE .COM IN AN OUT I NO SO MUCH I COULD WORK THERE FOR FREE IF I HAD THE CHANCE .SO FOR THOSE WORRIED ABOUT WHAT U CAN GET WHEN IT OPENS GOOD LUCK I WOULD START FROM SCRATCH I DONT CARE IM A DESIGNER FOR CLOTHING AN DANG GOOD TO SO MAKENA AN MICHEAL WILSON THIS IS BIGSNEEKIE AN IM WILING TO DO WHAT EVER TO HELP U OUT AN I NO EVERYTHING I NEED TO NO ABOUT THERE IVE HAD MULTIPLE CLUBS AN CLOTHING AN I N0 THE RULES INSIDE AN OUT AS WELL AS THE SYSTEM IM OFFERING TO WORK FOR NUTHING TO HELP U GET THERE HOME FOR US

You mentioned the branching method.. Starting with blog and emails.. What’s the plan on letting the rest of the world know? I think the biggest issue with pay now is the people who have never tried it. Choose wisely what you offer the people who want to feel it out first.

So i never really spoke to you micheal, everytime you appear i wud try and chase you down just to share some of my ideas and opinions right before there.com closed, im not sure it wudve made sense, cuz i was still a child, but i just want to share my opinion on all of what happened with this game. i began playing there.com at the early age of 15, i didnt have the money to pay for premium so i had to beg my mom for it, eventually she gave in and paid for me and herself, i made my 40 yeard old mother fall in love with this game, thats very rare considering the fact she never uses the computer. After i had finally achieved my premium i was excited, i met so many people, older then me, and younger then me, basically i became so addicted i was forced to stop playing the game and eventually i had to take a break due to the fact i had school, and household responsibilites. enough about that now, i didnt join there.com cuz of the graphics, or the clothes, or the items or the cool places and all of the material things, i joined cuz i wanted someplace to blend in with people, to fit in, a place where people didnt care how i looked or how i acted. i met my four awesome best friends on this game :D we have been together since 2005 until 2011 to this day :) i dont really remember what day i joined but it doesnt matter, my old account got banned due to the fact one of my friends logged in and rowed out a island guide, no worries a made a new account and thats my main one now. after all the things me and my friends went through, on this game, when we found out it was closing, we were on the entire week until it finally closed, we were on avie sacrifice and we were falling until eventually the game screen went black and there was gone. so many people were sad, they went on youtube and posted so many videos it was a big deal. especially to those who were designers and promoters, who actually “cared” about this game being successful. i recieved a message yesterday by one of my closest there.com friend. her words exactly “pack your backpack and move out of whatever game ur playing because there is back” i didnt even blink. i screamed and called everyone i knew that there was back, because i hanged out with one of the largest group who played, there. i dont really care for the payment, but some of my friends are under 18+. i just want to say thank you for finally making a decision to finally reopen there.com. PLEASE DONT EVER CLOSE IT EVER AGAIN!! <3 and dont change anything about it because it was great the way it was and the payment plans are great. ten dollars a month is a great price. for those who cannot pay that, i guess you can borrow some cash for the first month. working hard to achieve what you want in life :) well goodluck micheal i look forward to seeing this game rise once more.

So what Exactly will we be getting for our monthly charge except access to the online world?????????? Will we get a weekly allowance of tbux? will we get a free porta zone ? will we get a free house or will we get nothing except the access????

I paid for my < 18 year old daughters prem account and paid for all her gear. Will I be able to have access to her account? To take back her invetory. It's a shame we won't be able to be in the game together. We had so much fun.

What exactly is the reasoning behind not supporting humans under age 18 for There2? I have read in one place that it is because you cannot protect them content wise and now recently read that it is because the younger kids did not pay enough into the system. I’m just looking for some clarification.

P.s I turned 18 this year so I’m in the clear no matter what and I would like to add I’m extremely happy with your decision to reopen There.

@ Achenar:
It’s not really about content; its about protecting minors. Some have included in their posts the ideas that the younger crowd doesn’t pay enough(or that they are more responsible for griefing), and while that may or may not be true, it isn’t really the issue. I believe MW commented that protecting minors is the most expensive cost involved in running There. Unfortunately it is way to expensive for them to run the world if they have to contend with that along with whatever other expenses are necessary in order to make it work.

Oh, and my nick in There is Destiny_Campbell: Nice to “see” you again Achenar! I can’t wait to be racing again in Dune Valley! (Assuming that Zone gets reopened by whoever ran it before)
Hope you’re doing well, It will be nice to see you There again :D

Some people brought up the bit about the younger crowd not paying enough, but the actual reason given by MW was that it is just too expensive to try to adequately protect minors in There.

ps. my There nick is Destiny_Campbell – good to see you here Achenar! I look forward to seeing you and all my other racing buddies in There! I sure hope whoever ran Dune Valley and the other zones in the racing circuit will be reopening them!

I think There2 could be a really good place for national or international corporate or family meetings. Its combination of both voice and typed communication together with a fast response time (minimal lag) could be really effective. The written log of what has been typed is another benefit.

I have read the problems with the gambling aspect, and I can understand why There would like to stay clear of that all together. As far as the Sex/Nudity part, I personally wouldn’t like that a part of the game either. I was just thinking more of the marketing of a PG-13 contented game being sold as a AO one. I am glad to hear that there will be some blood/violent content added to the game, not because I’m into the violence of a Sociall MMO, but at least that is something that can be marketed to an 18 and older community.

I’m excited about the prospect of There reopening, and I understand the financial burden it was having by having a one-time-pay subscription. In saying that, if you want the masses to pay for a game that they once played for 10 bucks, or for free, then as a consumer, I want more content for my buck. Im just guessing that it’s going to be hard to market a 18-and-older game without any Adult Content. I know it cost the company a ton of money to make the environment safe for the minors, but if someone had never played There before, and was looking for a game with an Adult Rating, what would be the appeal to them? The 3 things that AO rated games tend to have are Sex/Nudity, Violence, and/or Gambling….There has none of these. The bottom line is, you cant just change a rating without changing some of the content, I dont think the masses will buy into it. I miss There, and I hope by some miracle it does make a successful return.

Well, I’m kind of curious about the multiplicity of names from this IP address…

That aside, we’ve said we would life the ban on “Blood and Guts”, so I guess that covers your violence (we’ll draw the line at truly disturbing stuff, I’m afraid) (I’m talking about things like intestines spilling out of Avatars and the like).

As for Gambling, I hope you’ve been keeping up with Current Events here in the U.S. The FBI (the REAL FBI, not the people who regularly threatened me on our forums :-) ), just seized a bunch of online gambling sites. We’re not into the whole seizing and incarceration thing, thanks anyway.

I hope we’ve been pretty clear here that you would be getting There – as a sustainable business – unlike what it ever was before – for a monthly charge. Improvements (beyond the stuff already in the oven, like DX9 support, OSX support, improved avatars) will come after we’ve proven we can run. Then, like any other business, if there are profits, we’d invest in improvements.

Hey Xenos and Danielle, no offense and I dont mean this in a bad way but there are plenty of other places to get off on your pixel avies. There is SL, RLC and who knows which other places.
Having a no bloodgamblesex virtual world for adults will be unique and IF correct advertising and marketing is done I am 100% sure that it will attract thousands of adults who arent looking for sex, blood and gambling!!!
Perhaps MW you should use the no sex, no blood, no gambling idea to actually advertise There. Just an idea that came to me just now!

I have to remind folks that we’ll probably relax the restrictions on “Blood and Guts” on Developer items. It’s not going to go as far as disturbing items, like spilling intestines or you-can-only-imagine, but we’re not sure banning the rest of the items in a 18+ world would make complete sense.

I’ve played there for a VERY long time, it’s where i met xenos. Personally I hate SL, the only time i’ve ever even tried it was when There shut down for maintenance… and as soon as There was back up SL was deleted. When There closed I didn’t even try to find a game similar to there, cause I knew nothing would be like it. I went to Aion, and Guild wars… which lets just say for me will NEVER compare to There. I personally love there, because of the friends I met. If it were up to me, I’d pay whatever I had to a month to play, (but I don’t make the mula in the house)… cause I like the old there. I personally don’t care if anything really changes. The only thing I will miss is those players that were under 18 that I became friends with. I think they were an important part of the game. Not every 14 year old was annoying and ruined the game for others…

Hello again Mr. Wilson. Just got a couple more ideas to share with you..

I read that you were thinking about ways to combine multiple avatar inventories/merging accounts. One way that LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online) does this is having a physical vault that you can open and exchange items in and out of multiple locations in world. This could be the equivalent of their “shared storage” as it’s called which allows avatars on the same account to access and trade items between characters. The shared storage itself wouldn’t have to be very large, but just big enough to transfer bulk amount of items at a time.. maybe 50-100 storage slots? Another variation of this could be some type of chest or container that could be placed in a zone with permissions that can allow multiple avatars to access. The owner could add or remove avatar names of the people that can have access to it. I know this would take more hours of code writing to make something new, but still an option.

The other possibility is instead of merging the inventories, how about merging associated avatars (owners that can prove all accounts belong to them) into one account. The user would log into said account, then be able to choose what avatar name to be logged into world and keep that avatars inventory in tact. Of course this would only allow the user to have one avatar at a time (that is claimed to that account) instead of having multiple computers/clients open to use different avatars at the same time. To reference LOTRO again, when you create a new account with them, you start with 3 character slots, with the option to purchase up to 6 more from their store. I think this could possibly work but I’m sure that’s debatable. I do realize that if the avatars were merged into one account, then you would potentially lose the monthly fee for people who want multiple avatar names, but then again, I know you and your team haven’t figured out the details quite yet. :D

Since There closed over a year ago I’ve started playing Lord of the Rings Online. I started off doing some beta testing for them prior to their Free2Play launch in September. I’ve enjoyed the game quite alot since it’s an MMO and has many of the qualities There had, such as decorating housing, text and voice chat with other players, and nearly seamless transitions between areas.

Their payment platform starts at $15 monthly but any grouping of months (3mo, 6mo, 12mo) all drop the price to $10/month when purchased. I think this would be a convenient way to do There’s pricing as well. In addition to that, LOTRO offers 500 Turbine Points each month that you do multi month bundles as well. Now, I know that you probably won’t be offering any additional Tbux with the monthly subscription, but just as suggestion anyway. Some of the other things that the VIP members get (the ones who pay the monthly subscriptions, not the free players) get many more benefits as well, such as: larger inventory, more wardrobe space for outfits, and larger auction house spaces. I think some of these same things could apply to There if considered.

I’m not opposed to free trials, but I think limiting access to free trials to just the “Welcome Walkway” as we had before could work. From there using the video monitors or other means of video playback to show more of the things you can do in There to promote purchasing the subscription. I don’t think trial memberships should have voice or any inventory at all until they opt for paying. Maybe even having a doid only name tag until they purchase the subscription would be interesting too, that way you don’t have to waste time picking your name (or using up names) for the trial members.

If you’re in need of some free Bug Busters again just give me a buzz via email and I’ll be happy to slap the ol green bug back on!

I dont think well see any free anything in There. they need to make money make it fast and as much as they can. The more great ideas i read and hear about, they all get shutdown for one reason or another on here it seems. So If there reopens, it reopens, if it closes back down in a year or two it wont be our fault. I just hope certain people have learned from their mistakes. I love to see there reopen, but if it dont, dont worry another one that looks feels and is basicly 80% the same will be out in September of this year. so not all is lost =D

http://www.yownow.com Basicly the same looking as there.com, all the games we had before, buggies, paintball dancing emoting, hoverboards..water surfing to. Reading back over what i said before, i guess i sounded a bit rude. Sorry, did not mean to come off that way. Trust me i love to see there.com back up and running, and i will pay to play, both games realy. Anyway I guess that’s what ya asked. and sorry again if i came off sounding like a A__s.

Ken, no offense my friend but IF YowNow opens and IF you decide to play both worlds and they find out at YowNow that you are on There.com, trust me on this one…
you will be BANNED for life from YowNow.

BTW, last I heard, YowNow is opening September 31st and if that doesn’t go well the next opening date will be November 31st.
They also have one more back-up date. February 30th

BTW, since you will be on There.com, why would you also want to be on a clone of There.com instead of going somewhere else totaly different?

I dont think they can do that without getting sued lol. that’s like World of warcraft banning everyone that played everquest. Dont make sence if they are still getting my money. AND if they do ban me, then no worries, i still want to play There more. One more thing Yownow gfx need a good gfx card to run, not like there does.

Vonira is already facing Legal Suit(s) by both slandered ex-member’s and ex-employee’s (like myself), *if* YowNow opens I am sure the Federal Gov’t. will be riding their trail since my case has to do partially with planning (on the part of ‘John’ Reid Iford) of going against the ADA.

Michael as alway’s I offer my service’s for $1/year Consultant Fee – Basically the same position I had at Vonira but I’m willing to do it for free basically…

Hello Mr. Wilson :]
I have an inquiry regarding possible funding for a “future” There and payment process for members if There decides to reopen. Not sure if these have been posted as of yet or thought of by yourself and staff.
Perhaps you can offer the use of timecards with a certain value ($10, $20) at a local store such as Target, Walmart, etc, or maybe use the pay-by-phone method. It would free up the limitations of just being able to use a credit/debit card to make purchases and seems like a feasible approach for those that are hesitant in submitting their credit info online or would just rather pay by cash. As an extra incentive, you can probably do a rewards system so if you buy a certain amount you receive a certain amount of credits. You can redeem those credits for ingame items like a free month of rent at one of the many There homes, an exclusive portazone or maybe even a vehicle that’s modelled differently than the default vehicles, and so forth.
As for the “future” funding, you can make an App available for $1.99 or so that gives you updates about There activites on ThereCentral, lets you IM your friends on your BuddyList, check the There auctions and/or check your There submission status (Pending, Approved, Denied) and even purchase Therebucks through your device (iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry,etc). You can also offer real accessories you can buy. For example, a basic t-shirt with the There logo and your avatar on the back with it’s colored nametag above it’s head.
These are a few suggestions I had and hope you’d consider them. I played There when I was 18, five years has come and gone but I remember fun times on There vividly :] I hope it gets reborn.

Hey MW, remember when those clowns somehow stole a copy of There’s client and ran it on their own servers? How did some low-down losers with hardly a dime in their pocket get There up and running for next to nothing but it costs you 30k? Just curious.

Actually that didn’t happen. The “Client” that you are referring to is the Stand Alone of There. In that Stand Alone, MW and others made Sure that nobody could use that for online purposes. So it really never happened.

Hey Michael with the monthly fee would you throw in an unlimited portazone with 50 drops? Since SL has there premium deal at 72.00 a year and you get a 512 square meter place. Don’t you think that would be fair? Then of course we will want to upgrade and pay more for additional space and add maybe another drops by paying extra. Kick that around please. Thank you. Jerry66

How will the greeters work in this new there? Also, will they receive the same benefits as before? I look forward to paint balling again, this new there should prove interesting. Really hoping the the charts yield promising results so we can finally get back to the good old days. Spent six years playing There and placed quite a substantial amount of time into the game, life just isn’t the same without it. Please bring us the game that changed all of our lives back Michael, only you can do it. Good luck.

What money? Do you still not understand that There was paying money to support the World but was NOT making any? You can’t run off with money you never got; they were not making enough to keep the game running, therefore any money they did receive went into just keeping it online, not in their pockets. I hope I don’t sound hostile here, but it really irks me that MW et al are trying to create a working model to bring There back to us, yet there are still those who want to throw around accusations that have no basis in fact.

@ Michael Wilson ~ I for one am grateful for your efforts, and sorry you have to put up with the abuse of those few who just don’t seem to understand.

Also: I will gladly do all that I can to promote the world (maybe post videos – once I figure out how to make them) of in-world activity to my FB page etc (I am assuming that’s allowed since I see videos of There.com all over YouTube)

Thanks again for your efforts, and those of everyone at Makena. I am so excited and can’t wait to get back in There, now that I have read that you ARE re-opening!
Woohoo!!! Grats to you all, and yay for us! lol

It’s not letting me reply to the comment tree so I’m writing this here, in regards to the parental consent form – Isn’t it possible to have some sort of form that can only be filled out with information the adult would have, such as credit information, social security number or whatever is deemed fit and probabl cant be obtaine dby the 13 year old without the parent knowing about it?

Mhmmm Right…Just Concerned…Like I said before Take your time MW… But I was still planning on buying a Hood which I already set up and made a video out of and when you get that available does the certain acre’s have drop down limits for instance if you have a 20 acre you can only have 5 lots? Or is it Unlimited? If it reopens.

And how are you for sure That 18+ Will pay for the game to. Just because some people are under 18 dont mean we cant afford it because you made the game free so their not gonna pay but if it wasnt free they’d pay 9 out of 10 would. So yah thats kind of messed up Not all 18+ would pay I met others who were 40 and still were noobies. They still can drive buggy’s trial cloths so why they gonna pay for?

So how about a system that Secondlife has in place? Maturity level regions/areas. Those that are under 18 stick to under 18 areas, with those that have accounts over the age of 18 barred from said areas unless they have some form of right to be there (such as staff). It’s restrictive but possibly an alternative to a strictly 18+ There, and would cut back on the possibility of ‘child to adult in-world relationships’ and the need of the staff to protect teens.

I’m sure both children and adults didn’t spend an amazing amount in world, but I have reason to believe this is because of the very low cost to play. We were given lifetime memberships for a -very- low price and the many things that came with it. In my experience I didn’t have that much of a desire to get Tbucks because of the things I could get without them. You say that children by a majority are the ones that do not pay much. However, I tend to find that when things are so easy to obtain freely, I have very little desire to pay for them, as others would as well. Make things more exclusive, and people will be more inclined to pay for them.

If you’re going to exclude under 18’s, you’re losing far too many players and the game will decline… I think it’d be better to try running a There with teens than without. And there is no reason to believe that teens will not pay the subscription, because look to games such as World of Warcraft and e.t.c. A majority of their players are in fact teens and do pay for the game. If you are going to give people things for so little, how can you expect to keep up with costs?

You know it is not just about how much 18 and under made up there.com or even how much they spent. It is their safety that is the primary reason for not making it 13+ again. As Michael has said over and over again it is the law that you can not as a minor enter into a contract. It is sad I agree as I had my children playing there as well, and will deeply miss interacting with them in there, but as a parent I was scared having them there and not being able to monitor their every move. It is just safer for them and MW as well. I for one do not want to see him in a lawsuit and there.com closed once again!

I also had an underage daughter in the game with me (consent formed), and she’d play with her cousin around our neighborhood. however, I totally agree, I couldn’t monitor her enough and was very scared for her safety. I fully support the 18+ membership (not as if I/we have a choice lmao) and I’m very happy about the decision. But, anyway, Kudos Mr Wilson on re-opening There (There 2).
Now, if I may voice a concern for this pay for membership. I spent about $20 bucks a month in There between me and my daughter just for T-bucks to buy virtual goods. so, just for me $10.00 won’t be So hard to do, as I’ll spend another $10.00 for T-bucks each month (probably). however, with this monthly or multi-monthly payment (as we have that option), will there be any kind of T-bucks return for our membership fees, Or, is this fee simply a cover charge to get in the door? this may have an impact on how many players return. Way back before it was finally closed, I think I remember discussions on this subject, but I’ve never been clear how it was gonna work

Right now, it’s a “Cover Charge”: that’s what we asked people to vote on. I understand people all want something extra, but we’re trying to cover real costs here, not make some obscene profit. The T$ purchases will help cover any difference between the “I voted yes for paying” and “I changed my mind”, or other suggestions about where I could put my subscription fees.

everyone is moaning about having to pay but doesnt a lifetime membership mean lifetime or is that just a term i thought life in america ment life not just a few years i and my wife are both beta lifetime members so please calirfy if a lietime member gets t get back into there if it opens at no charge as its been asked a few times on your boards but no real clarifacation thank you

He made it pretty clear that the monthly charge applies to everyone. If everyone that had a lifetime membership got their accont back for free, very few people inw orld would be left paying, and THERE would fall right out of business.

There are not many ‘lifetime’ members (ie: those of us that joined before the public launch were given an opportunity to PAY for a lifetime account). Based on what I’ve read between the lines, we might see an option that has those few members have no monthly charge (or a reduced monthly charge), no transfer of ownership and you still have to pay for any metered services that may choose to use.

I know that even if our Beta accounts stay grandfathered in, I’ll STILL subscribe to keep at least one of my other accounts active to support the service.
My family members accounts were not lifetime either.

My friend told me about the re-opening of There. I was so darn happy. When There closed, other games couldn’t replace the joy and the feeling of belonging at There. I’m 15 and I never hated their new ways of not letting 18 below play. It doesn’t matter. If I have to wait for 3 years It’s alright. There must go on with or without me. Please do re-open There. Thank you Mr. MW for trying. Oh and yes, the Bunny Shoes were free during the last days of There.

Hi, Great idea to bring back There. Thought: I dont think you would have trouble getting previous players to come back but may need to add more as in things to do, fun , entertaining etc.. to entice new players to come and pay to play

Okay… I had a few accounts and three of them were beta (for my family that played as well) … HOW and where can I go to double check which ones are lifetime memberships? And is there a place to still retrieve account info?

I just have two comments for Mr. Wilson. First, I don’t believe that former members should have to pay a subscription fee to get back into the game. This seems to be quite unfair to the previous users of There, especially the premium members. These premium members have already had to pay for their membership and shouldn’t have to pay again just to be able to get their avatar back and be able to play There again. If something could be done about this subscription fee, preferably it be eliminated, there will be much more previous There users that will come back and play There once again. Second, though this can relate to the first point I made, I believe that beta users should be given privileges or benefits. I think that beta users should be allowed to play There2 for free (again no subscription fee) and possibly get other benefits in the game. I don’t know if you’re going to have a demo of There2 or a beta version or whatever. However, beta users, I believe, should receive some sort of benefit from waiting for There to come back and staying with it the whole time. I, myself, am a There beta user and joined when it first started (in 2003 if I remember correctly). I have stuck with There throughout the years and have wished it to come back ever since it closed down. So, on behalf of the several beta users out there, and premium members, I believe that there should be no subscription fee for these users, if not all previous users, and I suggest that beta users be given special benefits in-game.

Mr. Wilson If the new There2 is to open all should pay including Beta I have heard rumors of the Beta accounts still being free if thats the case then to bad for me for not joining there.com a few months sooner.There are other incentives you can give our Beta users for there contrabutions to there,com

I know you mentioned that the poll ending times are flexible due to the unsent emails. Any idea when the poll might be closing now that eails have been sent, or when we might have our answer asto There’s fate?

Hi Mr.Wilson I made my new ThereDaily worldpress blog it should appear right now it’s active oh and I wanted to say that if you do open there2.com could you give me a sneak peek of it before or any new news on twitter(@ThereDaily)or on our blog theredaily.worldpress.com if u can’t find it go to worldpress.com haha thanks -ThereDailyTeam!

I do have many avatars but I will only be paying for one if it is a fair deal. I would like to see if I can get into some other accounts to transfer things over to the one I pay monthly for. I am sure I have some nice things on those other accounts. Maybe we can have a day pass to certain accounts if requested? Pay a dollar for some sort of account item transfer fee for the trouble of allowing us to do this. Who knows.

This will be great. I hope my girlfriend in the Philippines can get her avatar going again. One thing is her income is very limited right now. So maybe she can’t come back soon. I hope she can. Marivic is her avatar name. And with any hope she will be back too. We will be back in There again. All the sweet buggies. We can go for some drives way out in the boon docks and throw down a portazone. Wow the good times could be back. Back to 2003 when There began I will feel it again. Feel the emotions of being virtual. All the sites and sounds. Duda beach, Karuna Plaza. This has to happen. I think it will. Shutting down was good so There could capture some of that revenue that Jinxtv had from reselling. As you can see on Facebook many people have the There badges on in support of the There community. We are ready with bells on to come back.

I sure hope There.com opens again. I sure with I would have gotten one of those lifetime beta accounts. I missed it by a month or two I think. But anyway I might pay monthly for There if it comes back. I have a lot of things to sell and maybe I can offset my monthly cost with some sales. So if it is 7.95 a month and I earn even 5 dollars in tbucks a month I am only paying 2.95. I think 10.00 a month seems a little steep. Since I get Netflix for 7.95 I would think at the very most that would be the price. I would give 4.95 in a heartbeat without any sweat off my brow. 6.95 sounds good to me for a poor boy in Northern CA. Please check out 6.95 Michael. That is kind of a Walmart economy price. 10.00 hits us a little harder. But if you have to go 9.95 or nothing then go for it. Maybe I will go for it to get Jerry66 back up and running again. There has too much going for it really. All those great card games. Hey Michael I know you were working on the fingers of our avatars. Any chance you can have that fixed up for There 2? If not no big deal. Thanks, Jerry

i put the right email and sure as heck i spent over720000000 seconds but i havent received my email yet??? wat deos it even say?? i uninstalled the client to try and move on if it opens can i just download it again and sign into my old account?? so wat deos the email say..

I got the email a while back to take the survey and I did! Today I got the same email to take the survey, I didnt take the survey again as I already took it once and didnt want to look like I took it more than once.

WOOT!!!! So glad to hear about There 2!!! I have missed so many things about There: the buggies, the ability to travel inworld from place to place and all my inventory especially! MW, I commend you (and the rest) for ALL the changes you have in mind, too. Most of us knew that under 18 was a bad idea in general and we also knew who spent all the money. I think there are plenty of other opportunities for fun for the underage set and for many, many reasons it’s best to allow adults their own world.

Just to let you know I have 6 people who have filled in the survey when i have told them about it 3 are my wife, son, and me other three mother in law, sister in-law, and wifes best friend, they all used my computer to fill in the survey you may see this as trying to cheat the system but the surveys taken from my ip address are all real and not me cheating.

Hi Paul,
Does this mean all of you will be playing the game ‘There’, if it opens? I ask this because the only fair thing for MW is when we fill out the survey, each person in his or her mind are truly serious about playing the game..This question is not just for you, but I think all of us need to answer the question at least in our minds…

– At the time There closed, I must have had about four premium avatars, the first of which falls in to the lifetime beta category. I would like the option to keep all of my avatar names, but it sounds as though it would be cost prohibitive to do so. I’m not asking for an answer today, but will you please spend some cycles working to address this? I like the idea of some kind of family plan, where avatars are loosely linked in some manner.

I was an avid There.com user. I am now an IMVU fan. I think the discussions here are all good, but the big picture is missing. One of the most important foundational considerations does not seem to be mentioned. If we look at some of the “other” worlds and learn from them, then There will be in a better place. Obviously the business model did not work, but will the new one be more robust? Anyway, my suggestion is look at some of the big online systems that are doing well for growth: Facebook, Ning (back in the day), Second Life and IMVU. For example. These systems were all built because of “developers”. I should really repeat that sentence at least 5 times…. They were built and grew because they allowed “developers” to get amongst it… and “benefit” somehow from their creativity. So, Im going to highlight a very important aspect of the new business model for there.com… Lets say, you get lots of subscribers, what will guarantee the “growth” <<<<<< Important to consider, and what will guarantee the "rentention" <<<< Important, so that people stay. Here it is: Make There.com work for developers, because Im going to be honest (and I was one of the top developers on there.com) it did not "work" for me financially. I make money developing on IMVU, if I came back to there.com and it started how it left off, I would not find any benefit. Im trying to highlight here, right now, that unless the new there.com, seriously considers developers as being the "core" backbone to help it grow, then forget about it. Im not being negative, I was a strong advocate for there.com, but I remember quite clearly, that being a developer for there.com, was only for "fun" and nothing serious. Moving forward, it needs to get "serious" about the development/creativity/growth aspect or it will stagnate (as it did). Injecting money into it, is not the answer (you may have learned that by now?) You need loyal followers that help it grow. These are developers. Id like to talk more about it, but I'll leave it at that, since this aspect does not seem to be addressed yet. Take care, and I sincerely hope for the best.

I’m not campaigning to change the 18+ thing so please no “OMG he said 18+ a million times…” responses. I’m just trying to ask a few questions and concerns that if Mr. Wilson even has the time maybe he could respond to.
Here’s my concern… between the teens, the people who’ve just moved on and the people who vowed never ever to come back, who’s going to be there? And those of us who do go back you all realize the dynamic is going to be totally changed, it might looks the same but it’s not going to be the There that closed a year ago. The 18+ thing, while I understand the economics of it I have to ask if you have considered the other side of it? Teens tend to be more social more willing to talk to anyone and anything that happens along while adults in the virtual worlds I’ve been on like to stick together in little groups of like minded people. Without the teens I think there is a chance that one of the greatest There experiences and selling points will be gone, he large gathering place full of people just standing around socializing and people other people. I went to SL after There closed and every large gathering place in SL is the same, everyone talking to their friends in IM while local chat is just a few people spamming and screaming the F word.

Also Adult or 18+ regardless of what you mean by it says one thing on the internet, Sex and porn. New people are going to show up and see it isn’t there and leave or try to bring it in themselves. If you are not going to let it in are you really just losing the money you save by not babysitting the kids by having to babysitting the adults?

Last, tomorrows 18+ are today’s teens. People like what they are used to. If you sign up for Kaneva (ick) or vside when you are like 15 you are more likely to stick to them when you turn 18 and not graduate to a 18+ world (unless a person is looking for a more “adult” experience like sex and porn). Read a few virtual world forums, a lot of people dislike other worlds especially ones they been denied access to for some reason. Remember when you tried to welcome the vsiders when vside closed and the massive hate that got thrown at There? When you tell tomorrow’s potential users that you don’t need or want them today, they remember.

I see people mentioning maturity. People always complain about immature teens or teens and drama. I was 14 when I started playing There I’ll turn 20 in 3 months. I’ve found that there is no shortage of immature adult drama queens in the VL or RL, as a matter of fact some of the most the immature and drama prone people I met on There where adults. Funny thing about immaturity and teens is that most of them grow up and mature while immature dramatic adults are kind of set in their ways.

Hi Michael(:
I just feel like this is a rather important question to answer, it may be common sense, but I still would really appreciate an answer. When you say pay-per month, does that mean you have to be on There 2, and then count a month that you are on? or does a membership run throughout the month that you pay. For example, if you purchase a membership on May 5th, does it run until June 6th, or do you have to be online for a timed month?
Also, are we going to have an oppurtunity to change our therenames in the process of renewing our membership?

Perhaps; you’ve said that we’re “starting fresh” with new avatars, just with the same inventory/buddies/etc. You also said that avatars that weren’t claimed within a certain amount of time would most likely get their names “thrown back into the pool” for others to take. So maybe that’s where it comes from.
In my opinion, I would love to change my avatar name without losing all of my stuff. I would even pay extra to change it. I’ve seen other online services, not just virtual worlds, that give users the ability to change their name for a price, as long as nobody else has it. Maybe you could do that?

I think it keeps coming up because in the time that There’s been closed, a lot of folks started new virtual lives elsewhere under a new/different name… and now that There’s reopening (beyond expectations), they don’t want to lose the friendships or what-not that was forged under their new name; they want to “carry over” all that stuff in a way, “Know what I mean, Vern?” ;) And for others, changing their avie name can cut all ties to their former virtual life, the friends they had, and more importantly — the stalkers/griefers who were constantly looking for trouble. :D

I believe the subscription is set by date not time. And yes you can change your name at anytime by creating a new account with a new name. More money for there.com, thanks for your dedication to a wonderful world I dearly miss.

I want to do a 100 lap buggy race cause i know its just a stupid thing to do .
will need to clean up all them tumble weeds scattering through out dune valley.
i just want to drive my buggy.
my fiat multipla just dont do ramps to well in real life :(……..

I’m excited to see what happens with There2, hesitant when it comes to what amounts to investing in it though. On all my accounts I did spend a good deal of money just in purchasing the virtual items. I think I might be willing to buy 6 months membership at a time, but tragic that I will lose so much of what I had in world on the rest of the accounts. In my history I watched simsonline and there die, where I hang out now I try not to spend any cash. I hope to at least come back and see what the new world will look like and I am not sure but I think There2 might be closer to California than the place that is getting my money now, lol. Wave hello to all my friends!

I think that making the new There 18+ is a very good thing. So many problems occurred with people who were immature and causing trouble, thus being banned, and a more mature “There” could only be a good thing. Then, it becomes what it should be: A wonderful place to develop friendships and have a fun time without the added element of “drama” that the younger set caused so frequently.

Plus, the 18 plus community has the money to invest, and if There is a passion, are more than willing to pay for a monthly service.

I would say to Michael Wilson, go for it! The new There will be new and improved, a moneymaker for you instead of operating in the red, and everyone will be highly appreciative that the world they once occupied was back.

Great idea, for those of us who have missed There, this is truly wonderful news!

Do we get a smal amount of Tbux if you pay that mounth.
Most Tbux flow back to the game.
Normaly if you give something back to the people online the spent more and buy more stuff.

Say the company have problems after some time online and the same problem comes ,server cost monny.
Can people or company donnate monny to you ‘ There.com’ to stay online if needed.
So its more open info to people.
Most people wanted to help you out to stay online.

For me if I needed more to pay to get the server still running go for that.
Ask the people befor your unplug.

I do not wanted to know if all go well in monny by there.com in the dollar info ,but if it go down hill give the warning and ask moor.
So people can help you there.

There were people banned from there because they hacked into other’s accounts. The person I am thinking of caused trouble all over the world of there. I really hope people like that do not get back to there in any of their many avatars. Also it was sad in there to see 16 and 15 year olds hooking up with older people. When this happens in real life the person older person ends up in jail. Hopefully there will be something in force to stop this sort of thing from going on again.

Ok..This might be off topic..But I am very curious..
In the world I go to now (SL) I am a singer entertainer..I have a stream I use to sing in real time, backed with music…I also sang in ‘There’…., I loved to entertain our fellow Therians….At the time of using there, I did not know I could stream my music ( I only held down my voice button to sing with music).. After ‘There’ closed, I found out that there were other Therians who used the streaming method to entertain others…..My question is: Will we still be able to stream our own music or instruments? I so want to be a singer in There once again, while using the quality of ‘streaming’….. Thank you MW…

if someone was banned from there.com would you consider a fee to re enter the world? (if you re opened that is) or consider having warnings for say bad language or things like that, you could give out 2 warnings then ban their ip if they carried on? also there should be an option to suggest new products (paintguns, cars ect) or you could pay a fee of £5 to name a place in there without having to buy a zone the fee would just cover the name then if the buyer wanted then could pay an extra more expensive fee for rights to move things like you would a bought zone, i think it would be a smart idea not to let the person who is paying the fee not to let them ban people from the area but to warn you or a healper about them? just some ideas to help :) id like to hear back from you

Is there any way you could possibly post the Previewer and StyleMaker install files? I mean sure, I can design things without previewing them, but what fun is that? Even if There isn’t quite ready to re-open, at least we can design things for fun.
Well I want to, at least. So, when and if There does come back to life, I have a bunch of brand new designs I can show off to the world. It will be amazing.
Pretty please? :)

MW I think if there opened again with $10 a month I would pay for two avatars and I think there are a lot of others who would do the same. I if you make it $15 a month then I would not pay for two avatars. I took the survey twice once for each avatar. I don’t know many people in there that only have one avatar. I also think you should not have given us an option not to have a monthly charge if there really was never a choice. Why give us a choice in the first place.

Ok.. My question… None of my business really. With all the programming already existing, and all the avatars still in tact, and aside from all the initial re-start costs, How much does There cost to run per month?

Also, When I first joined, the monthly members (yes there were monthly members back then) would receive a stipend of a certain amount of T’s If we must pay monthly for membership, will we also receive this stipend once again?

How do I get to change my avatar here so that I can show my orange fedora!!!

my question is this if there reopens at what ever cost to members would those that allready paid a lifetime membership be still be in effect and hounourd by there as in my brain life means life could someone please answer this thank you

If ‘There’ needs to charge me monthly, even though I payed a life-time membership a few years back, I am all for it…. If there needs finances, so be it! It’s great to have the possibility of ‘There’ opening once again, even though the strategy of financing changes…. way to go MW

Im so very excited over this news!!There.com really became a place I loved hanging around.I would like to say that I agree with paying a fee,but lets try to not make it over the top.I mean,only you guys with the numbers know what would really work.For example,If you charge 10 but dont get enough people(wich I am sure wont happen,since theres no place like There.Believe me…I tried all the virtual worlds you can Imagine)then It wont be enough For the re-opening.I do have to add that I met people from other countrys were monetary resources are not as good,and being able to pay a 1 time fee,It was kind of hard(just saying what I kind of saw is some people I met).Something that concerns me is that it will be kind of hard in my opinion to have people spending money in the game,in other words,to gain back trust.(though to be honest,I think that all of us loyal Therenians wont care as long as we get There.com back).I do have to say that,in the other hand Im sure alot of us spent some reasonable amount of money In There,and at least to me,the question of “what happens if I start to put more money into the game and then it happens again and There.com Decides that it did not work and that the’re close again?” (and by the way,I take my hat off to you guys for being so fair and if re-opening,giving us back all of our stuff,you guys are incredible!!!)And about younger people playing There.com, I kind of think is unfair to them(no im not younger than 18)but if its really kind of a monetary burden,I would think about it twice.Then again,I trust you guys know what you are doing.And one suggestion,how about if you guys make a plan,You know,its always cheaper when you buy as a whole.So there could be an option where you could pay for 1 year but make it more affordable isntead of every month,or also offer the 6 month purchase.also,I know that either way,it has to be some sort of payment we would have to make,but what would happen if for any reason we cant afford to pay next month or whatever,would we loose our stuff?would the account be put on pending?if we stopped coming for a while,and we decide to come back,will we still be able to re-activate our accounts?(sorry not familiar with monthly paying accounts).Anyways,I hope something can be done and There.com re-opens,I miss my dog!!!please!!!There,open!

On April 5th, 2007 while standing around on Zona I met my future husband. I am from the United States and he was from South Africa. A year after we met on Zona I flew to South Africa to meet him and his children in person for the first time. He asked me to marry him and after that spent a year going through the whole immigration process. In September 2009 he and his two daughter’s immigrated to the United States. On September 18th of the same year we were married. Had it not been for There.com we would have never have met each other. So needless to say…There.com will always hold a very dear place in my heart.

It is silly to say…but I have mourned its closing for over a year now. I almost feel lost without it. Heck…sometimes in RL I see something that triggers memories of There and my heart will immediate begin to ache. I am still amazed at how much There.com has touched my very being. I am definitely on board to pay the monthly fee and so is my husband. I am anxious to build my paz again…so I sincerely hope that all of us who love There and want to see it come back can convince you Michael that it is worth reopening.
Regardless of what the decision is…I appreciate you consideration.
Thanks!
Moondust

Hi…
The whole reason ‘There’ closed was the lack of financial balance…If we pay a ‘One Time Fee': 10.00 20.00 or even 30.00, the offset of balance will be totally messed up, to the point where ‘There’ could never operate.
Again, to play a game for a monthly fee is minute IMO… As I stated before, I do believe there are ways to save money if we really want to play the game…And for those on limited income…(My husband is disabled therefore our income is very limited..) we have always found great ways to save money for leisure without breaking our money bank…I am not trying to convince anyone about saving money to play the game…but..I guess, it depends on if we really want to play ‘There’ and, how badly…IMO

This is both wonderful and painful to know. I am under the age of 18, so I won’t be able to fit in..The survey results are promising that I will not be able to play. Thank you for considering to open up There 2 anyway. The excitement was great while it lasted.

IMO: I like the parental accounts idea, it would
‘Be the Answer’ to the 13+ Issue! ;)

-Recap-
[quote]
#29 by Buddleia_Girl on 2011.04.30 – 5:05 am

What about a 13+ user account being somewhat limited, and being tied to an active parent’s account? Much like FusionFall, where they set up a Parental Control account, and then the children’s accounts and permissions were tied to that one. You could go a step further, and have member complaints go directly to the parent account, and any punishments affect the parent account equally. I’m sure people would ensure their kids toed the line if their own accounts were at risk by the behavior of their children. You know, kind of how we wish the real laws were.
[/quote]

About the Alt avys, and the thousands of Trail avatars made, that were never used again for what ever reason.
could not be deleted, This built up into a mountain. IMO: why not put the Alt. avys in this parental account
model? Like a family tree graph! hmmm?

BUT ALL I KNOW IS THIS, ***Please***Change***Back*** If at all possible ( I know that it is, with all the VM backups )
The IM WIndow messanger!!! This is what Killed There! Because the old light blue colored IM window messanger you
could stay in a group conversation while racing your buggy or flying your hover boats etc.
When the New orange colored IM window messangers came out, You would go out of the conversation with
just about ANY click of the mouse or key board! No body could communicate anymore while racing etc. So
the FunZones became GhostZones! It was a total nightmare still up to the time There.com closed.

The other thing that needs to be turned back to the way it orignaly was ( before VASH ) Ruined it IMO.
is There.com SPACE! There.com Space used to be psycadelic vivid slightly trailing colors off the objects
against the blackest of space with the stars bright, virtago lolol it was great before it was turned into a thick
SMOG filled place! Oh yea IMO they did a cheap filter patch job on it and made the fog/smog go away and
turn ‘Space’ black again. But the vivid colors you could see for (there space miles) away, Now just turn and fade
to smoggy shades of gray! :( Please FIX SPACE.

There.com I always have felt should be listed in the Gehnness Book of world Records and preserved
as National Forests are IRL But ‘Preserved on the Internet’ ( and not in limbo either! ) Because There
( even as old as it is ) is still IMO Ahead of its time!
Maybe not in graphics but in Communication with others with avatars that act and have
most realistic actions/gesters and movement along with realistic physics ( driving a buggy flying etc.)
In a 3D World.

SL is a completely different platform than There.com is but with all it has, IMO SL still falls short, its just NOT THE SAME.

Just NEEDED to get this out to a place where it will hopfuly fall on the ‘right eyes’.

When There notified everyone that they were closing I immediately started moving everything out of my mule avatars into my main account, during that last week I condensed all 7 of my accounts into 1 account. Reason being I had no steady job at the time and “if” there were to re-open I wouldn’t have been able to afford monthly on more than one account anyways. At this time I’m more than willing and able to pay monthly for 3 of my accounts plus if my better half is interested in joining too I will see to that she has her own account. She had no clue what There was when we met all she has seen has been a few youtube videos and mentioned that it looks like fun.

i have an idea that might potentially address the dilemma surrounding trial memberships and, in one fell swoop, also allow existing members with multiple avatars to “use [them] long enough to get stuff out of them,” a problem that you mentioned earlier. i say, what about creating an option for PAY-BY-THE-DAY MEMBERSHIP? this would not only give newcomers a chance to try there.com without a significant financial commitment, but it would also allow users with many accounts to transfer their assets over. it would also be great for those of us that used our second avatars occasionally and need the ability to activate them for short periods.

keep a payment source on file to streamline the process. include several membership duration options. a longer membership commitment should coorelate with an increased discount; this would offer an incentive to purchase a more expensive package. for example, charge $1 for one day, $5 for a week, $15 for a month, $60 for six months, etc. offer bonus therebucks as an additional incentive for choosing a more expensive membership package. upon expiration of the package, the account could simply go dormant, able to be reactivated at any time.

the only foreseeable problem with this might be sporadic users that, instead of buying a package membership, pay-by-the-day for three or four days a month and remain inactive the rest of the time. that may or may not present a significant financial loss. i’m not too good at these things, clearly, but i just thought i’d offer up my idea here.

I, myself, am an 13 year old..And my parents have spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on There.com. But, I am not here to beg for you to make it atleast 13+ or welcome for minors to come. I also don’t know if you have any children, but I am curious..If you had a child, who used to play There.com, and There “2” was coming out, would you allow him/her to play? I mean…You would be paying the monthly fee for him and you, which would create more funds for There.com. Through my own views, I think it is both a ridiculous and wonderful idea for just adults, or just 18+ and over to play. Well, all I have left to say is: you may not have been getting too much money from the 13-17 age group, but I have seen a few 7-12 years playing There.com whether they were allowed or not, and I am not saying they REALLY were that old, I’m just saying, you could still make monthly fees from them. Think of all those MMORPGS. They have 13-50+ playing their game, PAYING the monthly fee of 15 bucks a month. BUT, with YOUR business model, you could be making MORE than MMORPGS, because you have the advantage of people buying Therebucks with real money. You MAY be getting some extra funds, but, from what I think, you have already been in a conference room discussing all of these facts, so It’s not my position to tell you anything, since I have never been staff of a 3D platform or any other. And, if you have been wondering, I’m just a mature person. :P
Thank you for your time,
Anonymous

So what is going to happen to long time members of there.com that cant afford to play anymore? i know my self i am going to college and dont have a job right now and dont have to money to pay a monthly fee

im not saying it like that but i love to play there and the money i have now is all in college and i want to be able to drive my buggies again and if there there is no way to help the people out that truly cant afford to play i dont see there is much love for the players for the game that have been with there.com for many of years. i also think it will be complete bull crap if people with other avatars have to pay for each account just to move there stuff to one account.

I will answer that MW!
I feel that if a person wants to go to the movies, he or she will pay..If they want a pack of cigarettes (Which I don’t do)..they will pay…If a person wants to order pizza or go to the restuarant, they will pay…I would use less electricity in my home and save…I would eat at home and not go out in order to pay…I would maybe read the daily news on computer, instead of paying for a newspaper….In a nut shell, I do believe there is a such thing as saving…heck, we eat too much food anyway, so maybe not eat so much? Where there is a will, there is a way. But for those that say they have NO money to spend, I will not be sarcastic and say..Then why are you paying for a computer connection?
Anyway, I am just trying to say…We people do tend to waste, so maybe we can learn to spend less and save for the things we really lilke to do in life?

but the thing about that is i mean 10 bucks a month is alot though i mean my friends have xbox and its 60 bucks a year i mean 120 a year is steep and yeah i understand if you go to a movie or do this and that but this is different.

Yes, this is different: you can get a lot more entertainment out of a virtual world or MMO game than you would from spending a couple hours in a theater watching a movie and munching junk food.
Ten dollars is NOT “alot”.

Mr Wilson: My nick THERE was I-planet, and many people I know, I’m a systems engineer and my language is Spanish, so I apologize if my English errors. Like everyone, I found very good idea to reopen There and I would suggest some things that might be useful: it is clear that the free business model has not worked but it is also true that there are economic and social things that are important to consider.

1-facilitate payment for those without access to credit cards

I think if, There comes x amount of money, you may be able to keep their expenses but why forget to provide the means for users to pay? people living in USA and Europe will surely find it common to pay by credit card but I also think the rest, who do not have access to them especially in Latin America.
why not send users an invoice to pay at banks? probably tell you that’s impossible, but here is very common to have international payment platform so (I say this because I charge my clients so) and you can allow more people can afford.https://www.cuentadigital.com/area.php?name=Home&nl=english

(with my accounts, in this web site, I send invoices to my customers and they pay in their countries without problems.)

2-support the people who generate content – THERE
One of the things that generated most concern (at least to the people close to me) were the high costs for clothing, furniture etc and then upload to your server and then be sold. Why not lower these costs to encourage the creation of content and in turn more revenue for you? in my country is said to be won by the amount, many paying little often generate more income

there are many more things that could talk, but the mainstay of any business is its customers, and if you pay, you will have customers, all customers should be well attended, so I think it is to care and will pay and costs are important things to consider. This is not to be a criticism but a suggestion to help and serve so that all stakeholders can see again There.
hopefully soon we can go There were 4 years amazing to me when I was there.

wow, great to see There back, it was fun.. when i was there.. I was MrTechPearl on there, and my Wife of Mzpearl… it would be great if the new there was formed.. that the paid subscribers would also get a house and some land. as well,

Here’s the deal–I already PAID a fortune for a There membership, paid for voice and a lot of extras to the
tune of almost fifty dollars, plus a monthly fee ($10) for a couple of years. When you closed, I lost a small fortune in in inventory and T’s that I will never recoup. I had almost stopped playing anyway because everything got so prohibitively expensive, the emphasis stopped being on friendliness, helpfulness, and the “aloha” spirit and got meaner, nastier, WAY greedier, and full rude teenagers and advertisements for corporations like Coke and Nike. Since There closed, I’ve moved on to Second Life, which cost nothing to join and where I’m enjoying the endless flexibility of creating my own items and clothing, and have over 17,000 items in my inventory that cost not one red cent. The only money I have to spend in Second Life is a nominal amount for rent and any donations I care to make to groups, performers or program facilitators. While I was really sad that There finally closed (after repeated threats), but I’m really over it now. There was great while it lasted, I really love it, but I probably won’t be back.

Hello to all my friends form ‘There’.
Many of my friends and I had invested alot in the world.Allowing ppl to play for free seems the nice thing to do. But in the long run, it hurts all of us who truly value the world. A small amount of ‘ PAYING’ players cannot support the whole world.
A free account limited to two weeks,and one per IP adress, will allow new players to check out the world and learn a bit. But then they should pay a fee to keep that account, if they wish.
I would hate to reinvest again just to have the world close in a year or two do to overuse by non paying membors!

Oh, and one last thing on the matter of reducing THERE’s population – people in opposite timezones from the US, such as myself, tend to experience much downtime during most of the day, because americans and such are asleep or at work. Reducing the population further, be it by age restriction, basic membership canceled, monthly payment or whatever, is going to make it so THERE is even less active and appealing during those times to the point where I might not even bother logging on at any time besides late in the evening.

Ugh, I cant belive the window crashed and now I have to type this again.

I would like to add more thoughts on the issues bing discussed here:

On the matter of reducing THERE’s population due to making the game avalible to more specific crowds: I definitely see how this appeals to many people, but to Event Hosts such as myself, lower population in THERE would mean lower event atendance – which is sometimes pretty low even if you’re a well connected and experienced event host. Lowering it further could ruin a hobby that many Therian event hosts share. Teenagers are often the ones that make the biggest crowds at events such as paintballing, racing, or games. This also applies to dwindled population over monthly payments.

On the matter of age restriction: Many people seem to connect age to griefing. And while, yes, griefers are usually young, please remeber that only a small precent of them are in fact griefers, and i feel it would be unfar to the rest of them to block them from using the game due to a generality. In fact – many teenagers have helped me in the past to take control over griefers that attended my events. I really don’t feel that these people should be blocked from the game if the logic here is behavior-baed. I would also like to remind people that, yes, you can tell many people are young by ho they talk or act, but many times you can have a perfectly mature and well rounded conversation with someone and not even realize that they might(andin som cases are) 16 or the likes.
I believe that a better solution would be to allow younger people in the game, but enforce stronger regulations, maybe have volunteer helpers who’s job is to help deal with griefers. Much like Island Guides.

On the matter of monthly payment: I half support this and half not. For several reasons:
1) I have been playing THERE for six years or so. about half that time I wasnt actually active in game. I often take long breaks, and I like knowing I can reenter my account at any time. This is usually not triggered by anything specific, so I wouldn’t even know when to disable or re-enable my account to try to save money,because my logins can be based on whatever I feel like. Many people have a sporadic login scheduele as well, and I believe that monthly payment will not only drain us of money for times that we’re not even using the game, but also will prevent players on hiatus from returningto use the game because it wont be as easy as logging back in, they would ifgure “eh, i kinda want to log in but i’m not going to re-enable my account now for that!” and forget about it. I would like to at least see some sort of long-term discount package. for example, if you buy a year’s subscription you get it for %35 off or something. That way I would feel more comfortable with it.
2) I believe that if we’re paying money monthly we should also get a token amount of therebucks each month. not tons, just, say, 400T-900T or so. but it would be a nice way to balance out the lack of free money for us to spend on buying therebucks and the likes.

On the matter of disabling basic accounts:
1) This seems like a terrible terrible mistake to me. I don’t know many people who would be willing to buy a “cat in the bag” like this and commit to paying $9 a month for something they have never even tried. Whenever I want to turn someone onto there I have them create a trial account and seeing the gme for themselves. I can’t always invite people to my house to play the game through my avatar. I think the fact that basic members alreaddy can’t use voice, host events, sell stuff, buy stuff, earn real therebucks, etc. etc. already makes for a good balance. Please weigh the benefit – the amount of people using these to actually see what the game is like – versus the disadvantage – how very few of those people actually use these to grief, or alternatively, never buy full membership.
Basic avatars are also a good medium for people who simply can’t afford to pay for the game (which will be an even iger issue if monthly payment is introduced) and people (like me) who need second avatars for very basic things (I use mine to help run my events).
If the issue is multiple accounts – I believe this can be limited by things like one email per account allowed. If the issue is griefing – again, nothing that a more sophisticated block system or mod squad can’t take care of. If the isue is monetary, due to lack ofs ignups – I believe that leaving the basic accounts restricted as they are now is a far better solution than canceling them out completely and will draw many more people to be members.

I hope the many things I’ve written will be heard and taken into consideration.

If I remember my reading of all these posts correctly, MW has maintained from the beginning the decision to be 18+ is about the high cost of protecting minors, nothing to do with them being perceived as griefers.

I’m happy you’re keeping your stance on 18+ and not readmitting banned users. Personally I don’t want any of your resources being spent on assessing individual cases of people who feel they were unjustly banned or deserve a second chance – I’m guess the second chanced opportunity passed them long before they were actually banned. I would like all your resources spent on reopening and keeping There going.

The problem with trials is a difficult issue but it seems a lot of people feel very strongly that it would in some way benefit you if people could have a peek into the world before committing. Have you considered, and you very likely have, but you never know, a sort of locked down avie as a trial. What I mean is, a sample avie, named ‘Guest256′ or whatever number – that can enter the world for free but cannot hear, speak, type, read, msg, teleport or be summonsed, cannot use tags or trial items such as paint guns and such but they at least get to walk around a bit – maybe in a play zone like the one at Fisher Island so they can see a lot happening. Being locked out of participating on any level would likely nullify any desire to grief with these avies, while still providing a necessary look into the world. It could be an account that is deleted once the avatar logs out. I figure as long as they can see what they’re missing, and can do nothing at all until they join, it would be effective. Now I’ve no idea regarding what it would take to set up something like this – bit if it’s expensive, forget I mentioned it and plow onward toward reopening! I wish you every success! Heaven knows, after reading all the posts in this blog and the other, you’re earning it!

p.s. also, please don’t update the graphics. to me, those were a large part of the appeal of the place. maybe higher-res would be okay, but the cartoon-inspired feel helped separate there.com from the rest. if i wanted the place to look like real life, then i’d just live that instead :D

realism is overrated. that’s why second life looks crappy. it’s trying too hard to be real. there is no artistry. no soul.

i am elated at the possibility of there.com reopening. i just received the survey invite, and it made my day.

i want to offer my full support for the proposed move to a pay-per-month model. i say this because, since the introduction of one-time fee membership and free basic membership a few years ago, i witnessed the degradation of there as it became increasingly overrun by irresponsible teenagers and more griefers than ever before (i’d been a member since 2004, right after beta). i had never supported that business move to begin with, but i suppose the financial state of there.com at the time called for such a measure. maybe.

anyway, problem is, i was a teenager myself during those years (i’m 21 now), and i take issue with the idea of barring minors from the proposed there2 entirely .my there.com years were formative years for me, and i would hate to see other teens like me miss out on that experience.

though i am obviously not privy to the financials behind allowing minors in-world and how it affected the stability of the company, my belief is that the root of the problem was not the inclusion of minors, but the move to one-time fee membership and free basic membership. before the inception of said membership programs, there were far less irresponsible and immature teens in world. i remember because i was there. i believe this is because, when membership was paid monthly or yearly, parents of minors were almost always involved in paying for membership and in supervising their child’s activity in-world. i know mine were. i paid for my first year’s membership with birthday money, and my parents were kind enough to help out occasionally afterward. they helped pay for the service, and so they took a keen interest in watching over me to make sure their investment in my experience in there.com was a good one.

however, once membership became free, a new batch of teens flooded in, many without parental consent. they and their families had practically no investment in there.com (since they weren’t obligated to pay anything), and thus, felt little to no sense of ownership in the place. personally, i know i tend to take a lot more pride in a place when i have a sense of ownership in it.

and i’m certainly not speaking for all teens that joined there.com after the switch, and i don’t mean to over-generalize. i just noticed this downward trend developing during my time in there.com, and i found it very off-putting. i think the world got too big for its own good, and it started to lose its close-knit feel, something that had attracted me so much to there.com in the first place. it started to seem less about quality and more about quantity, and i felt less like a name and more like a number. like part of some business scheme that seemed to be going awry. it sounds bleak, and i don’t mean to be insulting, but that’s honestly how i felt.

in short, my philosophy about there.com is that it’s better to have fewer members, but ones that are dedicated, mature, and paying for the service, than a slew of non or hardly-paying members that have no stake in the place at all.

i maintain every hope that there.com will make a comeback and am confident that you and your team will develop the paying-membership model into a profitable one.

thank you for your continued dedication to a place that i will always hold dear to me.

My teenage years in There were very important to me too. But, I accept this change to 18+ because:
1. It is a necessary sacrifice at this point. It has nothing to do with perceptions of minors, or demands of the narrow-minded. It’s not motivated by condescension. It’s purely an issue of legal liability.
2. One can always lie about their age; no system for keeping minors out is impossible to circumvent. If there is a system that’s nearly impossible to wriggle through, it’s probably too expensive and/or complicated for “There 2″ to maintain.

I think I’m that type-of-teenager that you’ve been speaking of in your post :).
Even though I’m hardcore on my morals (such as ‘no trolling’ or ‘abusing’ the rules of there), I had such little investment in There! Only a few months after I quit there, that I have decided to actually pay for it once. But it was too late, the game had closed while I was away.

I think the closure of There gave a little slap to my face, to the same face that everyone dislikes for so many reasons. I knew i was obligated to pay, but by playing the game for free and not even thinking about paying it 5 bucks, it already shows that i had little respect to the There Team that had to work so hard to keep the game running.

I hope this also gave a slap to everyone else who believed/s that games are meant to be ‘free’. Nothing is free in this world. And even as a minor, I’ll still be playing this game (my father will be paying for the game) just so I could make the statement that even teenagers can behave with all of these raging hormones too! Hopefully the closuer of this game gave a little reality check to both its loyal players and the less-commited ones.

From many comments and the writing style they are drafted in, I can comfortably say there is an awful lot of minors who wish to play There again and/or find ways to circumvent any access restrictions.

I am 50, I have been on Second Life since 2007 and on There.com from February 2010 to its closing day, and if I may drop my two cents, I believe Michael should take the lobbying attempts from minors into account and, besides confirming a 18+ policy for There 2, implement it in a similar way as SL still does today, even after allowing access to users 13 to 17 to the main grid.

In SL, users 13 to 15 have their access restricted to PG areas created by an institution they belong to, such as a school. In practical terms, they cannot join SL without supervision. Also, they cannot purchase anything on the web marketplace (modeled after there There.com store somewhat) or search anything inworld.

Users 16 and 17 have the added freedom of accessing all PG areas in Second Life and talking to all users on SL in IM. However, they cannot access Mature or Adult Regions, even if they submitted the data required by the age verification system.

All users circumventing restrictions can easily be spotted and banned. Younger users in SL have a way of talking and acting that easily calls for an abuse report. I know this for a fact, since most users in SL are over 30 and we can all tell a kid from an adult.

Having said this to prove that it is not true that SL allowed access to minors to the main grid without thinking about it, it is apparent from the above that Michael should consider the number of minors who previously were on There and most of all find a way to have them banned from There 2 easily if they circumvent the restriction, then design ways to make them play in secluded areas.

I have to admit that the most annoying thing when I was on There 1 was kissing someone and later find out I had kissed a 13 year old. Not to mention being called “a pervert old man” by the user I had kissed :)

lol, agreed, i had an awful experience with this, i was actually physically sick when i found out a gf was 14, had another experience after but was very courses, after some investigation she turned out to be 60 hahahahahha i cant win, either to old or to young pmsl

Everyone is excited, I get it. But why are you all asking the same question over and over? “Will There2 be open by May? by June? SOMETIME SOON!?”
Relax, Dr. Seuss. He’s doing the best he can to get things going, so perhaps everyone should just relax?
I know I spent a lot of time on There.com. It was an amazing place to be, as we all seem to know. But expenses seem to be cancelling out profits for a lot of people (not just this). Give Michael Wilson some support and encourage him to do his best on things, yes? Give him time.

You can’t make someone pee by saying “WILL YOU PLEEEEEASE PEE NOW!?” if they can’t pee yet.

I always hear ocmplaints baout the graphics, but if you ask me, there was nothing rong wiht them to begin with…I alwyas thought THERE’s graphics looked way ebtter than of any competing game. I rather they save money, up the drop count in zones, and reduce lag, and keep the current graphics rather than increse graphics and make everythign more strained.

I really wonder if the pay to play model will work any more. It seems there are more and more games out there that are free to play these days. Would in world advertising and microtransactions instead of subscription work for you? It would be cool if There opened back up. It was a great place to be. If I had the money I would consider paying but….

Also, I reeeeaally hope you update the graphics. They were good back in 2000, but now it won’t cut it. Of course I know it costs money, but that is part of the equation. What do you think about the “off-the-shelf” engines from companies like Steam and Unreal?

I think the Cryengine would work, BUT either way a new gfx engine would make there take to long to open up, lest a year for gfx and remodeling. personly there engine can still be updated enough without killing the feel there had in looks. I would not change that to much.

MW, I have had no email as of yet and neither have the 20 or 30 close friends i have in the UK or South Africa that used to play There. Any reason why we have not been included as of yet? Good luck with the results, we all so want there to reopen, we miss it so much.

Over the past year I have missed THERE so much more than I thought I would, and that’s really saying something, since I knew I would miss it terribly to begin with.

Holiday vacations have not been the same. I hadn’t realized just how big a part of them THERE was until I found myself on summer break, staring at facebook, wondering when did the internet become so boring.

While words of monthly payment, and being closed off for children under 18 do bother me, I am absolutely extatic at the thought that THERE might be coming back and will gladly accept these little inconveniencies in exchange. I’m afraid that this might cuase significantly lower game attendance, but I’ll leave the business models up to you. All that really matters at the end of the day is that THERE reopens.

I would like ot point out though that it may be wiser to give three options in the survey about 18 year olds:

1) No
2) Yes, I prefer 18 years to b ethe minimum age requirement
3) Yes, I am willing ot accept it, but rather the game be open for everyone.
I think you might get very different results this way.

I am a graphic designer and a 2D cartoonist. If there is anything I can do to help out please let me know. tomixcomics@gmail.com

Please bring back THERE… It meant so much to so many of us and no other ivrtual world comes even close to it.

First of all, I’ve just recieved the email just a few moments ago. I am thrilled to hear that you guys are will to TRY to reopen the game!
I’m not 18, so I’m a bit disappointed. My parents trust me around these games but they do draw the line when it comes to paying. So I guess I’ll use my pocket money or something.
Question:
“If a person owns a credit card- and is documented to be under the age of 18, would you still accept their pay+allow them to play?”
I read something about you guys saying ‘We will not be responsible for those who are under 18″ So what I’m getting from this; If we get violated or at least see some sort of offensive content that shouldn’t be showed to people who are under 18, we won’t be able to sue you. right?
If that is the case, then I will risk my eyeballs for this wonderful game!

MICHAEL WILSON i just started There Dailly on twitter follow me i wanted to keep up with there like the day when it comes out oor most of alll is there a free basic member ship! i had a ThereDaily website but took it down so im now on twitter @ThereDaily oh and ill follow you but can you tell me the new things and secrets about there cmon we need to keep up with your virtural game There =]

How about renting zones out individually? Seperate from the main grid. For example something alone the lines of 2-3 hundred per month for a buggy zone. Cheaper for social/Card Areas. Then 10 dollars a month per person who wishes to access these zones that are paid by members? I’d be more then willing to do a 6 month contract for something along these lines. Granted I had control over who and what objects/textures were aloud. Thats bout 2-3 times more then the average server rental. Would be less risky then the whole open world concept and everything that was running would be making revenue. Anyways just throwing that out there if you Don’t have enough people for the reopening.

what day might you think it will open? oh and thanks for replying too. and you know how can i help to re open there and i mean anything to help. would you ever sell there.com? if i said i wanted to buy it from you would you let me have it and sponser you? because im willing to get there.com open as fast as possible!

i m just glad there.com is coming back. Nothing can replace this site..tried a few different ones and forget it,,Not the same. took long time to get over loss feelings u got when it closed. thanks MW..

If you had enough money to purchase and support There, you wouldn’t ask what day it’ll reopen. At least, I’d like to think so, because if that’s an untrue statement I will have to resent capitalism even more.

By that I meant that if “michael” were to make an earnest offer of financially supporting There and actually had the money to do so, I would hope he was intelligent enough to know better than to ask for an opening date or suggest one so immediate. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t deserve wealth.
But this line of thought is quite moot, as it’s obvious he has no idea what he’s talking about, he’d probably offer the change from his pockets as payment for whatever constitutes There in his vague opinion, he has no capabilities relevant to reopening There, and there’s no chance you’d take him seriously.
Sorry about the confusion.

She was responding to a poster calling himself “Michael” that offered to buy There from MW or to cover the cost of re-opening it in order to get it opened faster. She was simply commenting that she doubted he actually had the funds to cover such an offer.
MW must have had a busy day that day not to have understood her. He probably only had time to quickly glance at the comments.

I don’t believed I had heard this on your blog.. maybe I’ve missed it, but I don’t believe so.
I think it’s just one of those “silly” rumors going around.
Awesome! So glad to hear that thanks MW.
Also I’m not one of those people that did something they would regret in that week.

i’m really hoping there2 would open, and all of these ideas just sound like an improvement from the original game. my input is that if the developer items eventually moved to a peer to peer system, they should be anonymous. it would be unfair for designs to be rejected based on who made them, and i know this would end up happening.

If I chose to take back my old avatar, will I be able to change he’s name atleast?
+One more question , if the graphics are better , how will the old items from there 1 look in there 2? developer items.

I like your idea Kenny on the different memberships we could purchase. This would give New pple that have never played before a chance to try it at a cheap price and get hooked. (Like I did). My RL GF told me about there. I tried it for 2 days and was hooked. I HAD to buy a membership. LOL But it would also help the pple that have Mulit Avies. Sportstar25 and I had a avie that held all the items for our hood. I guess I would have to pay a membership for the “Hood” Avie so we can get our things back so when There2 allows hoods and lots we can open another one. We have already been talking about it. We are SO EXCITED to hopefully have There re open. :)

Just a idea i had to generate money for there.com on a monthly basis….
Basic/Bronze account could be 4.99/5.99 a month. Would allow that person to meet others and explore the world or certain parts of it. Would be able to hear music and other talk. But would not be able to take part in streaming music or voice chat.
Silver account could be from 9.99/10.99 a month Would allow that person to hold a spot of land the size of a 50/50 paz or half an acer. Own a small house to live in and have a 25 item drop limit, for furniture/deco. Also be able to voice chat with others.
Gold account could be from 12.99/14.99 a month. Would allow that person to hold a spot of land the size of a 100/100 paz. Own a small or medium size house and have a 50/75 item drop limit Be able to voice chat and stream music.
Diamond account could be 19.99 a month. Would allow for a 150/150 or 200/200 spot of land pick from a small medium or large house and choice of buggie or hoverboat, and have a 100/150 item drop limit. also able to voice chat and stream music.

Some other ideas that sould work within or around the above would be to be able to pick from a selection of small medium or large houses. Maybe 3 to 5 for each diff size.
Gold and or Diamond accounts could hold and post events for parties/clubs get togethers of some kind.
A lottery system not a gambling thing, but for the ones we know out there tha could use a bit of help to better enjoy There.com or just life ingeneral better. We could have a drawling of names of people we know and for a month people could donate some money for a new computor..or GFX card…or something they could use in RL. When said amount has been collected over a month or so, someone selected can pull a name out of a hat and the winner could be sent said prize from There.com with love, lol

Just a few things i thought of. The above prices and item drop limits can change, just think having those options and maybe other kinds of insetitives cold attact more people to jion.
Maybe a bigger push on the advertisments on facebook or youtube.

And i do think having it 18+ would be a good thing. in the long run. Again just some ideas atm. and wanted to post them here. thanks for reading, I hope there.com Opens again, and you’ll have be down for 20 bucks a month!

Not sure if anyone else has asked this yet, but when it comes to skills, clubs, profiles, start dates, etc., will all of that be reset? Because you said that we will be “starting fresh” with new avatars, but with all of our old stuff. Does that mean our original start date will change on our profile? I always thought it was sort of a bragging right if your start date was in 2001-2003… And since many members won’t return right away, what will happen with the clubs? Many club founders/owners wouldn’t be in There, as well as the members. Would they just be gone forever? Same with skills.. do we keep the skills that we earned previously, or do we have to start over?

I would assume we could lose our skill points we earned, but mainly we will still get our old avatars back with all clothing and items. but would take a day or two to get everything back. Things would have to load from their servers to you when logged in.
or logged out, not to sure. and not 100% sure about the points….They said they backed everything up…I think the skills would be in with the back up. Me? I just like to have my old avatar back lol

I haven’t really found another Virtual World that I have enjoyed as much as I enjoyed my time in There.Thank you for considering reactivating the world, at whatever the circumstances may be to make it profitable. Even if it’s priced out of my price point, I appreciate the fact that you’re taking all things into consideration when making your decision.

is this true that there2 opening or just someone playing a trick on ppl? and if its true how do we make sure we get our old avi accounts back ? will we have to use our old email that we used when we made the account or just login and pay?

Is everyone familiar with COPPA law regarding minors on the internet? If not, I suggest you go to http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/coppa1.htm and read up to learn just how much work is involved in allowing anyone under 18 to play There 2.

MW, thanks for trying to get There.com back up and running. I do miss is so much, have tried other worlds but never really found my new home. I am sure there will be problems with accounts and the actual working of how you are going to do it but at least you are trying. I can’t wait to see my friends and my stuff again. Good luck and wishing it can happen and happen soon. I just want to come home! Thanks.

How is it more expensive to keep the kids safe? If it’s about controlling content in world, yet you’re not changing any polcies on what is allowed. it would seem to me the costs for “protecting the kids” won’t change after all if I still won’t see nude avatars. It’s really the cost of having to hire a team of people to evaluate and pass judgment on developer submissions. THAT ALONE is the reason why so many of us jumped to Second Life because There’s polices were ridiculous and inconsistant.

Now if There2 comes online submissions will take even longer, and eventually be approved on a peer system. Sounds like a good and cheaper way to get this done. Likely mature content will be let though if us users get to vote on what passes and what dosen’t. I guess it’s cheaper to claim people 17 and under aren’t allowed.

“Kids” are going to use an online service like There.com regardless of what polices you put up. It’s not like the kids will suddenly STOP trying to get into the service anymore because a change in policy. That’s like hoping criminals will stop committing crimes by outlawing the guns and weapons they like to use. If anything you’ll have to INCREASE spending to keep people under 18 out. I would think ALLOWING kids from 13-18 to login would be CHEAPER since you won’t have to put up any “roadblocks” and age and identification verification checks. Second Life’s utter failure “Teen Gird” was shut down due to it totally sucking ass, and lack of use due the fact the kids were logging into the main grid ANYWAY so they can see all the virtual T&A.

Maybe be required to have a CC on file and or DL number? that could cut down some, idk lol, Kids who want to get in will get in no matter what. and having a stop sign by the door will make them want in more lol

Of course we’d prefer you have some sort of payment instrument on file (CC, or PayPal subscription, etc).

We’re not sure what to do about PayByCash customers though, since the above was a good way to help remind folks they need to be 18 or over to be on the service (yes, I know that people under 18 can have credit cards, but we know that someone who has a credit card wouldn’t lie, would they? :-))

Mr Wilson, There is some issues about PayPal. PayPal is blocked in several countries. I got this problem too, Here, I live in Alexandria, Egypt. and PayPal is blocked in Egypt. So, I found out in Onverse the game I play waiting for There lol. That there is a Paying method for VIP Subscriptions named as Credit Card Checkout. Here is an image of it:

I searched the internet and never found that. I think they built it themselves? maybe.. Why don’t you build something like that? Its available for all countries.. That would give you a win of money. more people = more money.

Lets say Onverse didn’t build this paying method. Maybe its a website for credit cards and stuff. Why don’t you spend more money for paying for that payment method? or, don’t pay for PayPal and just keep with “Credit Card Checkout” ? . Although its a very simple paying way.

Well, my Daughter is definitely an adult now, so “Adult Content” is not a problem for us and it’s simply not her choice, but I rather enjoy a bit of innocent fun.

So, Hello Second Life! (Sorry, was that spam or simply Reality Knocking? ;) I am on my second year with SL, via a Premium Membership (At $72 USD per year, which includes a Linden Home lot and 117 prims (sort of like counting the pieces of a Drop?), with about $60 of that amount being returned during the year.).

And over-all, I have virtually replaced almost all of my There.com vehicles and I have been modifying other vehicles and basically, anything that lets me play around with it, mates! ;)

Mr Wilson, there are still quite a few There.com followers on SL And you can make some very nice money there, if you have the right stuff. . . So, simply start-over at SL and then maybe, we will see what you truly have to offer within these 3d worlds? ;)

That is funny Jimony…and so right. I sure do miss being able to drive, fly and hover where ever! Ever take a long ride in real life just to see some country side…well with gas prices today I am quite sure you are not doing this too much anymore now when there.com opens you can drive and see all kinds of countryside and only pay 10 dollars a month hahahahahaa

You think nudity is what could harm a minor? No, it’s the possibility that those with poor judgment will interact with predators/pedophiles, give them too much personal information, and even meet up with them. Much more likely than that, however, is the possibility that a parent looks over their kid’s shoulder, sees something they don’t like, and starts a lawsuit over it.

Really? 18 + ? Really?
Thank you, you insult me. I am 14 and I paid more than 100$ in there.com.
I say the following:
Just leave it 13+ and in the agreement or how is it called say the following:
,,We are not responsible for any swears , blablabala you may hear”
or something like that.
There.com being 18+ would be an cheap clone of secand life.

That’s on top of how bad we would feel about such an incident, which is really the issue here. We don’t want to take that responsibility for every minor unless we can staff for it, and we can’t staff for it.

My Wilson couldnt it be that a monor could have permission from their parent for them to come in and that way it takes any responsibility off your hands and back on the parents so it would be enter into world with a parents perrimission and you wouldnt have to staff for that ??

What about a 13+ user account being somewhat limited, and being tied to an active parent’s account? Much like FusionFall, where they set up a Parental Control account, and then the children’s accounts and permissions were tied to that one. You could go a step further, and have member complaints go directly to the parent account, and any punishments affect the parent account equally. I’m sure people would ensure their kids toed the line if their own accounts were at risk by the behavior of their children. You know, kind of how we wish the real laws were.

why would someone sue you? your just loosing more customers by changing it to a 18 and up,
Can you just turn it to a 13 and up game for a month and see how it goes? try it out? please. youll never know what will happen unless you try.

I agree you Michael, but, I got a question. Most of the world here were 13+ or under-aged. If they just simply asked their parents to pay them and they accepted, How you’d find out those under-aged people in the World?

Another thing, Why do you really wanna prevent those people 13+ as how David saying..? You just need the money. not the age. lol.

Thanks for the feedback and open dialogue Mr. Wilson. The results so far are interesting and the final business model will make some happy and others not so happy. Best of luck to you on getting this going and stick to that positive cash flow model. You’re probably the CFO as well so remain steadfast =).

There.com’s physics engine is still tops all others and I’ve seen nothing like it since it’s close. Regards,
-Greg

Few suggestions Mr. Wilson, about using trial accounts! Video on the front page is a must! But to give partial new members a chance to see the game. First and farmost, trial accounts would stay at the welcome center or a island with limited actions. Use maybe Volunteer greeters. The trial accounts work for only say 12 hours – also have limited voice or text. Partial new member trial accounts, must verify their age. This would should stop griefers! There are many ways to do trial accounts!

Well,I heard about there.com (sadly) when it closed,it looked awesome.I would like to throw out a few suggestions…
1.There would just have some auto-regulating features…such as a word filter,and ignore feature
2.accounts would be free but all items such as furniture,housing,accessories,and pets would cost real money or there currency in other words,with a free ‘basic’ account you can still walk around,enjoy the game,and explore for free,but There Members would have access to exclusive member-only events,exclusive member-only items,and other exclusive items and maybe an area kind of like a v.i.p lounge just for members.Membership would have a monthly cost (in my opinion one-pay membership ((especially for such a low price)) was one of there.com’s ko decisions).
3.There would allow 13+ players,right now they might not be coming in with the most ‘money’ but they will grow up with there and as they get jobs,move out,etc. they will be adults who have warmed up to there and are willing to spend much money.When you think about it,teens have the largest power of word of mouth..between school,friends,and eventually co-workers.With just a simple computer handled moderation system or player based (player-based volunteers who work as moderators for no pay).If a volunteer or computer based system were integrated then there wouldn’t have to choose between younger audience or bigger profit,for little if any they could rake in a fairly large profit from the younger audience with a cheap moderation system.
4.Get even more sponsors,there could open up an area much like a movie theater,companies would pay there for rights to play ad videos in the theater and it is a win,win,win…the company gets a captivated audience,there makes practically pure profit,and the players get a heck of a good time watching different clips for new and exciting things!
5.Consider off-line advertising,a few ads on tv,and a magazine section could get there massive amounts of potential customers..I myself hadn’t heard of there until it closed which may be due to there’s lack of off-line advertising,also there could have items such as t-shirts,mugs,bumper stickers,etc. through companies like zazzle.com …..it is profit through items for there,players in real life get to show game pride,and they are practically a walking billboard for potential customers.
6.Reach happy medium in costs,the average pricing for membership for online gaming is $5.95-$10 a month,in my opinion it is better to have costs a little lower and more people (able to afford it) using the costs. On the other hand though…don’t make things TOO low,I don’t think this would be that hard to avoid but still being said…

I am hoping this could make there a successful and (of course) awesome online game! :D

As you said, you heard about it when it closed which obviously means that you have never been ‘There’. Unfortunately everything you listed in your comment was already going on in ‘There’ till the day it shut down. Things have to be done differently now in order to create not an awesome online virtual world which it already is but also a successful one.

I like 4. 5. 6. I would put a bumper sticker on my car of There.com! And i know they didnt push advertising on there, if they did they forgot they did and whatever they did is clloecting dust. I think 2 spots on internet videos, that were on their own site?
that’s like telling Pepsi workers to drink pepsi and leaving the trucks sit around in the lot…..Got to get the word out!

If you mean There, well, we DID push for advertising. Please see my comments in the There Myths post. Advertising money comes in when you have millions of eyeballs, not hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, or thousands, unfortunately. We also spent a ton on Google adwords. The idea of Google Ads looks great, until you have to start paying for them :-).

I’d be more then happy to pay just for a individual zone with nothing else attached to it. Throw on a servername and optional password and have only the servers that are being rented monthly running. But then again that would require developing a system to do that.